The nuns of Longchamp - a police report

The abbey at Longchamp, the setting for Diderot's La Religieuse, had a reputation for laxity. The convent was at the same time a cloistered order of nuns, a place of retirement and a pensionnat for young ladies. With its proximity to Versailles and the number of well-to-do pensionnaires who found their way to it, a certain relaxation of the rules was perhaps inevitable.  The royal authorities had no direct jurisdiction over the convent, but they kept a close eye on the comings and goings.  A police report from 1768 lists the pensionnaires and some of the nuns who merited surveillance.  It is a typical document of its kind, mixing pseudo-official comment with plain hearsay, and, in this case,  a decidedly masculine appreciation of the convent inmates. The report only exists as a pamphlet from 1870 but the historian of Longchamp Gaston Duchesne confirms its authenticity. All these nuns and pensionnaires really lived in the abbey. One of the Bertault sisters mentioned (Anne-Charlotte Bertheau - the report's spelling is creative) was abbess between 1780 and 1786.

Anon, Portait of a nun painting,
https://en.expertissim.com/french-school-18th-century-portrait-nun-painting-122668277

According to the report, the convent was divided into seven or eight coteries which occupied themselves "exclusively with pleasure". The most salacious anecdote involves two young men who conned their way into the convent disguised, somewhat improbably, as a performing bear and its owner. The elder of the Bedelles sisters, who were both nuns, led the "bear" to her room where she fed him sweets.  The police report claims that the both men became successively her lovers.  Another story involves an artist called "Descan" who was admitted by one of the pensionnaires, and had a high old time painting portraits of the prettier denizens of the convent.  This man is identifiable - he is Jean-Baptiste-Marc-Antoine Descamps, "Descamps fils" (1742-1836); there are a few surviving paintings and a Wikipedia article.

High jinks apart, the report gives a nuanced picture.  The pensionnaires, on which the abbey depended heavily for income, varied from middle aged widows and spinsters in retirement, to young women and even small children. Some are long-term inhabitants, some clearly girls of marriageable age awaiting spouses.  None seem to be from the wealthiest families. Some are quite sad cases.  There is a mother and daughter-in-law who have sought refuge from the violence of their son/husband.  There is a young epileptic whose mother is desperately seeking a husband for her. The writer Mlle de Basincourt and her book, can be found in  Histoire littéraire des femmes françoises, vol. 5 (1769)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RJ9aAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA586&lpg=PA586


References

Notes secrètes sur l'abbaïe de Longchamp en 1768  ed Désiré Lacroix (Paris 1870)
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k64792047
http://www.miscellanees.com/a/abbaye.htm

Gaston Duchesne, Histoire de l'abbaye royale de Longchamp /  (Paris 1905)
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k63751920/f116.image

Secret notes on the abbey of Longchamp 1768

Lady pensionnaires 

Mlle TALBOT,  Irish, fifty-five years old, a relative of M. Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne.  Mlle de Tirconel, her niece, married M. the marquis de Ventimille.  This lady has a charming character and lively disposition.  Her company is most agreeable, and her conversation is lightly witty and knowledgeable.  She has an attractive appearance and has always lived in high society.  She now lives in retirement whilst her affairs, which she has mismanaged, are put in order.

Mlle VIOU, a well-born lady from Lower Normandy, eighty years old,  has been a pensionnaire for thirty five years.  She is a lady who has always enjoyed pleasure and distraction.  Although she is so old, all the young women of the abbey, whether nuns or not, form a congregation  round her. She has such a jolly character that she inspires them with gaity and good humour.  She is known as the "life and soul" of Longchamp

Mme DAUBERQUE, a well-born woman from the Nirvernois, sixty years old.  Was for a long time the mistress of M. de Rocheguard, an officer of the guards.  She is a sad woman, but very charitable.

Mme  DE BUSSI-ANRION ("Henrion de Bussy") , the mother, fifty-five years old, from Bourgogne;  her late husband was governor of the Pages of the Royal Stables; she was educated at Longchamp.  She a charming and sociable  woman who lived for a long time at Court.  After the death of her husband, she retired to her estates in Bourgogne in order to bring up her only son, whom she supposed would be a consolation to her in old age.  Four years ago she married him to Mlle Dauberque;  but the character of the son has become so brutal and wild  that both mother and daughter-in-law were obliged to leave the chateau and seek refuge at Longchamp.

Mme de Bussi-Anrion, the daughter-in-law, maiden name Dauberque , thirty-six; not a very pretty woman.

Mlle DE KUVILLE, Englishwoman and convert, sixty years old;  she says she is noble; without fortune. M. Rousseau and Mme the Abbess of Panthemont pay her pension and keep.

Mlle DE LA CROPTE DE BOURSAC, twenty-four, niece of the late Bishop of Noron. Madame her mother searches everywhere for a husband for her, without success.  She is neither rich nor pretty;  she also suffers from fits which are probably a form of epilepsy. Since the death of M. de Noron, it would appear that Mme de Boursac has lived purely on charity from the Court.  It seems she keeps her daughter's whereabouts a secret, for no-one comes to visit her.  She has a maid in the convent called Chenneval, who is twenty-two and one of the prettiest creatures you could find; she has blond hair.

Mlle DE GRANGENEUVE, thirty-four years old, from Saint-Étienne-en-Forest, the daughter of a munitions clerk, poor.  She has not been able to pay her pension for a long time;  she owes the abbey 2,000 livres;  she is only able to remain thanks to the generosity of Mme de Bussy-Anrion.  She is a woman of good character, pretty, tall and well-built; brown hair.

Mlle LE CHAT DE LA CHEVALERIE, eighteen years old, a creole, very rich.  The estates of La Chevalerie are situated above Le Mans.  This young lady is of small build, but shapely; she carries herself well, with a noble air, full of grace and has a good skin.  Her face is so pretty that she could be a model for a miniaturist.  She dances and sings very well, and plays the violin like Baptiste.   She had an elder sister at the convent who recently got married.  The latter made trouble for her with Monsieur her father, who has given orders for her to be kept a close eye on.  It appears that her sister revealed an intrigue that she had with M. le vicomte de Rochechouart, who had been courting her for more than a year;  she had much more liberty then than now.  He father keeps her closely confined and refuses her all comforts.

 However her relative M. Desland, a musketeer, and an abbé friend of theirs, help her as much as possible;  dresses, fashionable costumes, poultry and game of all sorts.  It seems nonetheless that she lacks money since Audoir, the innkeeper at the Longchamp gate, gives her loans with interest.

Since these troubles, the young lady has been afflicted with attacks of the vapours.  To lessen them, she takes milk baths and sleeps at night with Mlle Aber,  who takes care to wake her if she has bad dreams.

Mlle ABER, twenty-two, daughter of a procureur of the Parlement.  She is a small person, ugly, with little wit but much determination;  she is bored to death at the convent.  She has two sisters, one married to a procureur, the other an Ursuline nun.  Their mother, who is a woman of pleasure, has disposed of her daughters to pursue her enjoyments without their prying eyes.

Mlle LIEGE, nineteen, daughter of the late Liege, apothecary near Saint-Roch, has two brothers;  the elder succeeded his father; the younger, who has a thousand ecus income, is a man about town. This young lady is tall, attractive, well-built, with a fine skin, white like snow, black hair and beautiful eyes, a cherry pie; her rounded face has a lively complexion, her teeth are perfect;  her dowry is 90,000 livres.  She likes to spend money and have her whims satisfied.

For eighteen months her lover was a pupil at the Academy of Painting called Descan, the son of a drawing master from the Academy of Rouen.  Mlle Liege is a close friend of Mlle de La Chevalerie; she introduced  her younger brother and  Descan, her lover,  to M. Deslandes the musketeer and their mutual friend the abbé.  This jolly troop took advantage of all the opportunities for pleasure that Longchamp has to offer.

1. The painter presented himself and offered to paint portraits; for eighteen months he was regularly allowed inside the convent to paint pretty  faces  and he didn't leave until ten o'clock at night.   He had a workshop in Mlle Liege's room.  He didn't lack sitters because he worked for nothing.   The most youthful and pretty,  nuns and pensionnaires alike, exercised his talents.

2. To vary the pleasures on offer, these gentlemen assembled in the grand parlour to perform comedies, to the great enjoyment of the nuns and pensionnaires.  I do not know how Mlle Liege found out that Descan was unfaithful to her; she sent him away and told him to mix his colours elsewhere.

Mlle CHEVALIER, fourteen, Parisian, pretty, tall and well-built, a bright blond with a pretty mouth, good voice and a lively mind.  She is the daughter of a clerk in the war office. Her father is the friend of M. de Chennevière.  She is at the convent to take her first communion.

Mlle DE BEAULIEU, not her real name, seventeen;  she is believed to be the natural daughter of M. Dangers, the farmer-general, and they say that her mother is a nun from the provinces.  She is small, but well-formed, with elegant features, beautiful brown hair, fiery eyes; good teeth and skin.  She has an impish wit.  If she has any fault, it is that she has big feet.


The sieur Maugis, a collector at the Saint-Jacques customs barrier, pays her pension and upkeep.  They say she is his goddaughter.  This young lady is not an intriguer, but she is very bored with the convent.   They want her to become a nun, but she is not having any of it.

Mlles GIRARD, three sisters, daughters of a Paris wood merchant, five, seven and nine years old.

Mlle DAUGON, five years old, niece of Printems.

Mlle LANGLOIS, a woman of rank, sixty years old, has lived at Longchamp for twenty years.

Mlle JULAT, forty years old, formerly a governess to well-born children.  She is woman of great merit and sense.  She is the niece of M. Bertin, a royal official.  This monsieur intends her to be a companion to Mme Bertin when she goes to the country.

Mlle FILLEUL, thirty, the convent organist, is as ugly as she is stupid.  She has three sisters who are all organists, one at Sainte-Périne de Chaillot, the other at Bon-Secours and the third at the convent of Montargis.

Mlle DE BASINCOURT, forty, a well-born woman from the Forest-de-Lions, near Gournay.  A woman of intelligence, a philosopher, who spends her time  writing.  She has just dedicated to the Queen a book entitled Education des jeunes demoiselles.


The Court has awarded her a pension of 150 livres.  She has asked for a position with Madame, the daughter of the Dauphin.  She is a close friend of  M. de Chennevière.  This lady is a very pretty brunette.



Nuns and pensionnaires from other houses

Mme DES ESSARTS, from Caen, seventy years old, a professed nun from the convent of Touci.  She has with her a lay sister, sister Saint-Maur, aged forty-two. 

Mme DE SAVARI, fify years old, sister of the Director of Water and Forestry in Rouen, Ursuline nun from the town of Rouen.  Mme the comtresse of Imbeck visits her often.

M(?me) de PALUO, sixty years old, from the Petites-Cordelières of the rue de Grenelle.  Lives with her niece the comtesse d'Érigny, aged fifty, affiliated for six years to Longchamp.

Mme LETELLIER, seventy-two, Cordelière from the  rue de Grenelle; has been at Longchamp for twenty-six years.

Sister CHARLOTTE, Bernadine, came from Panthemont three years ago, old and infirm.

Mme DE MONTBEL, thirty-three, Bernadine, niece of M. the Bishop of Soissons.  Has only been at Longchamp for three months.

Mme CHAUMONT, thirty-two, Bernadine from the abbey of Saint-Antoine;  very cute and pretty.  She has been at Longchamp for twelve days.  Her family are very rich cloth merchants.


Nuns of Longchamp who have intrigues

Mmes DE BEDELLES, two sisters, forty and twenty five, the daughters of sieur Bedelles, formerly a dyer at the Gobelin tapestry works.  They are much sought after by young men.

They tell a jolly story about the older sister.  She had a lover called Julien who was a mason from Suresnes.  His immediately predecessor was sieur Signi, the clerk of M. de Boulogne, receveur-général des finances.  This Signi was a friend of Julien; he wanted ardently to get into the convent;  to do so they devised the following stratagem.

Signi dressed up as a bear and wore a muzzle.  Julien disguised himself as the handler and, leading the bear by an iron chain, presented himself at the gate of the Abbey. He offered to show the ladies of the convent the bear, which he said was remarkable for its gentleness and the tricks it performed.  Their curiosity was excited. They allowed the bear and its master into the convent. They were taken to the Refectory.  Here the bear demonstrated his abilities and tricks.

The community were charmed.  Julien boasted of the animal's gentleness.
Mme Bedelles, the elder, immediately carressed it, seized it by the chain and began walking it round the house and the dormitories, finally allowing it into her room where she gave it bonbons.....

Mme Bedelles, the younger, is said to have as a lover one of the clerks in M. the duc de Choiseul's office.  She got to know him when she lived at M .de Chennevière's house at Versailles.


Mmes BERTAULT, two sisters, nuns, also pass for being galantes.


The whole  convent is divided into seven or eight coteries that are interested only in enjoying themselves and making merry.


The house is deeply in debt and is beginning to have trouble finding further credit.

The tower of Longchamp in the mid-19th century
 - all that now rests of the convent

Bronze urns from Bagatelle

Lanhydrock -  urn in situ

These splendid - and well-travelled -  Baroque bronze garden urns, which now adorn the National Trust gardens at Lanhydrock in Cornwall, are modelled from the 17th century originals cast by Claude Ballin II (1661-1754) for Versailles.  The ten urns hail originally from the Château de Bagatelle.  The Marquess of Hertford, who owned Bagatelle in the mid 19th-century, bequeathed them to his son Sir Richard Wallace (of "Wallace Collection" fame) and he in turn left them to his secretary Sir John Murray Scott.  At one point they resided at Nether Swell Manor in Gloucestershire, but they were bought in the 1930s by Lord Clifden, the owner of Lanhydrock.  There is some question that they may date back to the time of the comte d'Artois in the late 18th century;  but sadly no.  The well-informed Cornwell Gardens Trust website confirms that Lord Hertford had them cast from the surviving originals by permission of Napoleon III, and that they bear the mark of the prolific 19th-century maître de forges Antoine Durenne (1822-95).

The promenade de Longchamp

"Longchamp sous Louis XIV" .From L'Illustration, Journal Universel, 30 April 1859

The "Promenade of Longchamp" was an important annual event in the social calendar of pre-Revolutionary Paris.  In the 1760s it had become fashionable to drive out through the Bois-de-Bologne during Holy Week to hear the office of Tenebrae sung by the nuns of the abbey of Longchamp - especially so, when the nuns misguidedly fortified  their choir with singers from the Paris opera.  So great was the crowd that many Parisians drove their carriages to the abbey and back to the capital without being able to attend a service.  Archbishop de Beaumont tried to stop the indecent behaviour of the congregation by allowing only nuns to sing, but it was too late; by that time the "promenade de Longchamp" had become firmly established as part of the social season - the more attractive since, with the theatres in Paris closed, high society had little better to do. Participants competed unashamedly for the greatest  magnificence in carriages and livery.  As Professor McManners pointed out, despite gulf between rich and poor, the spectacle encouraged a certain social solidarity: "the irreligious ostentation of the great provided a celebration of revolt for everyone" (McManners, Church & Society in Eighteenth-century France, vol.1, p.87).  While the rich vied in their splendour, spectators lined the way; the police turned out in force,  the city watch lining the streets out to the Porte Maillot and the maréchaussée patrolling the woods beyond.

The most brazen contestants of all were the filles entretenues of court nobles and financiers, who flouted social convention with their provocative displays of ill-gotten wealth.  Mlle Guimard the dancer, "la belle Damnée", stole the show in 1768 with an invented coat-of-arms painted on the doors of her carriage -  the figures that supported it were said to have been painted by Boucher himself.  In 1774 two dancers vied with each other in splendid six-horse carriages. The following year one of them, Mlle Duthé, adorned her horses with a blue morocco leather and polished steel, only to find herself set upon by a hostile crowd.  In 1780 the daughter of the duchesse de Mazarin was upstaged by a common dancer, both of them in sumptuous porcelain carriages;  the next year the dancer had the duc de Chartres riding alongside in attendance. According to Bachaumont,  in 1787, on the eve of Revolution, Mlle Rozalie of the Comédie-Italienne behaved so badly that she found herself temporarily holding court in the prison of Fort l'Évêque (Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets, vol.18,  30th April 1787).  The Archbishop tried in vain to close the route into the Bois de Bologne.  The promenade did not, of course, long survive the Revolution and, although revived in the 19th century, never again recovered its pre-Revolutionary splendour.


Readings

 Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Tableau de Paris,1782. chpt 122
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BEMPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=false
On the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Holy Week, everyone leaves town on the excuse of hearing the office of Tenebrae at Longchamp, a little village four miles from Paris.  The real reason is to compete with one another for the most magnificent carriage, the most dashing horses, the most beautiful livery.

Women bedecked in precious jewels  come to be seen; for the whole existence of a Parisian woman revolves around being noticed.  All sorts and conditions of society can be seen in the line of carriage driving back and forth along the dusty or muddy alleys of the Bois de Boulogne.

The courtesan can be easily recognised by the luxury of her equipage;  one even had her horses' harnesses set with diamonds.  Princes show off the latest inventions of the saddler's art, and even sometimes take the reins themselves.  Men on horseback and on foot, jostled around in the crowd, eye up the women. Ordinary people drink and get drunk; the church is deserted, the cabarets full; and this is how we lament the passion of Christ.

In former times people went to Longchamp because of the music.  The Archbishop imagined that, by forbidding it, he was going to put a stop to the promenade; he was mistaken.  The faithful promeneurs still crossed the Bois de Bologne to the doors of the church, but didn't enter.  When Spring comes, when the West wind blows, the sky is blue and the leaves are green, it is the time to greet Nature in her own temple and to thank her for remembering us  once more.

Women are not the chief attraction; the carriages and horses are the most important spectacles.  Dilapidated fiacres serve to set off new and elegant conveyances.  Modern carriages are better designed and more beautiful than the heavily decorated coaches of old.  They are lighter in every way and go much faster.

The working man comes out on these days, puts on his Sunday best, and mingles with the crowd, watching the pretty women; but he can be recognised by his dirty and calloused hands.

Whilst some people walk around, breathing the clean fresh Spring, others go to Church  to hear the jeremiads which break the monotony of the long sad service.  It all ends with a kind of wild uproar.  It is a time schoolboys look forward to.

Baron de Frénilly, Souvenirs ed. A. Chuquet (Paris, 1909) p.28-9.
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k204797d/f51.image
I have seen Longchamp in its greatest brilliance.  Two rows of carriages departed from the front of the Place Louis XV, two more returned likewise from the extremity of the Bois de Bologne....A fiacre was not to be seen; a hired coach would have been whistled at, and there was some disdain for a coach and four, which revealed the lower ranks of the law or finance, by the vanity of baving more than two horses and the impossibility of having six.  At Longchamp, the height of bon ton, in effect,
was to have two horses or six, and only on the Wednesday and the Friday, for the importance of being either first or last is one of those caprices of fashion that can be well explained by vanity....

Account translated from L'Illustration, journal universel vol.1 (1843)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eM1LAAAAcAAJ&q=Longchamp#v=onepage&q&f=false
It was at the beginning of the reign of Louis XV that excursions to the abbey became a regular event.  A celebrated singer, mademoiselle Le Maure, left the theatre in 1737, to the great sorrow of the public, which always bitterly regrets those who decide to abandon it.  But singing was her life; she could not bring herself to give it up completely; tired of intoning the loves of Armide or Alceste, she filled the vaults of Longchamp with her soaring notes.  The nuns took lessons from the actress; their lugubrious psalmody became an angelic chorus and all Paris rushed to hear them sing Tenebrae during Holy Week.  The Abbess, astonished by this success, set out in quest of good voices, and invited the choruses of the Opera to take part. The dryads of the Triomphe de l'Amour, the infernal divinities of Persée, intoned, with the virgins of the Lord, quare fremuerunt gentes, or miserere mei, Deus.  Parisians thought they were at the theatre.  They beseiged the doors, they piled into the nave, clambered into the galeries, stood on chairs, on tombs, on the altars in the chapels.  For several years, there was a terrible commotion, an avalanche of noisy visitors; the little church was invaded by city society. Finally, curiosity-seekers who arrived on the Wednesday of Holy Week found that the gates of Longchamp had been closed by order of M. de Beaumont, the Archbishop of Paris.  The annual pilgrimage continued nevertheless.  This was the start of the promenades, a public festival of Spring,  in honour of the sun and la toilette, of new leaves and new fashions, of the return of beautiful days and pretty women.  Obliged to forgo the canticles of Longchamp,  it now paid hommage to the Reviver of Nature after the winter.

...Between 1750 and 1760 Longchamp reached its apogee.  It became a great ceremonial occasion: grand seigneurs, diplomats, public officials and Farmer-Generals vied with each other in luxury and elegance.  In Naples or Madrid, for the sake of piety, the king himself would not have dared to show himself in a carriage during Holy Week; in Paris, however, the aristocracy prepared for weeks in advance their most sumptuous equipages.  Modest bourgeois, who would normally travel on foot, abandoned their custom for three days.  Calashes, fiacres, cabriolets, coaches, horses,  sedan chairs, vinaigrettes, any vehicle that was available was requisitioned.  From the Wednesday of Holy Week a chaotic crowd encumbered the roads around the  Champs-Elysée and the Bois de Boulogne.  Actresses came to claim the applause that they had been derived by the Easter closure of the theatres.  Women of ill-repute showed themselves resplendent in diamonds which adorned them without eclipsing their splendour.  Journalists, pamphleteers, social commentators, never failed to turn up, and the numerous documents allow us to trace the saga of Longchamp almost year by year.

The promenade of March 1768 was favoured by beautiful weather and warmth:  "Princes, the good and great of the Kingdom", say contemporary accounts, "appeared with the best-designed, most magnificent carriages"  The heroine of the fete was the dancer Guimard, whom Marmontel had nicknamed "la bellee damnée". She appeared in "a carriage of exquisite elegance", on the panels of which, to rival the great ladies, she had had painted a coat-of-arms. The shield featured a gold coin with a parasitic sprig of mistletoe  growing from it; it was supported by Graces and surmounted by Cherubs. The coat-of-arms proclaimed her shamefully acquired money; but in this reign licence was too common to cause affront; the impudence of her admission was forgotten and no-one thought of anything but the cleverness of the conceit.

Several years later, in April 1774, the singer Duthé succeeded Mademoiselle Guimard in the role of "fashionable beauty".  The golden and glazed carriage,  pulled by six no less superb fringed horses, did not belong, as one would suppose, to a princess of royal blood; it carried la Duthé. On the Wednesday and Thursday of Holy Week she excited admiration; she believed herself without rival; but on the third day another carriage, no less gilded, pulled by six no less superb horses, galloped alongside hers.  Who was it who challenged her carriage for carriage, who held up their striking features against the commonplace beauty of la Duthé?  It was an obscure pupil of Aubinot, a dancer's double from the Opera, the demoiselle Cléophile, who had acquired a sudden opulence thanks to the protection of the comte d'Aranda.

The following year, la Duthé suffered the full fickleness of the public. As soon as her carriage entered into line, threatening groups surrounded it; hoots, whistles, shouts of indignation, assailed her with such force that she was obliged to withdraw.  Vague rumours, perhaps unjust, had provoked this explosion of displeasure. The comte d'Artois, who had been married for two years to Maria-Theresa of Savoy, often travelled incognito from Versailles to Paris.  He was bored with the biscuit of Savoy  said M de Bievre, and came to Paris to take tea;  the Parisians, who normally had few scruples, took the side of the abandoned comtesse.

The crowds of actresses and women of easy virtue made Longchamp so scandalous a spectacle that the Archbishop of Paris, who had unsuccessfully hampered it in the beginning, now tried to stop its progress. In 1776 he attempted to have the Minister close the gates to the Bois de Bologne during Holy Week, out of respect for the Jubilee year.   But his demands failed and the promenade took place as usual.

The tragedienne Raucourt, the prima dona of the Longchamp of 1777, almost didn't make it. On the 29th  March, resplendant and proud as though she was playing Roxane, she got ready  to get into her carriage.  You are thinking of going to Longchamp, madame; you are eagar to make a good impression and shine; but you have counted without your creditors.  You haven't noticed them waiting in ambush around your town house; here they are, they surround you, they take hold of your person, they invite you politely to sleep at the Fort l'Evque.  Fortunately for you, a generous - though not disinterested- man sacrifies several thousand louis, so that you can collect the ovation that awaits you.

The Longchamp of 1780 was one of the most brilliant, despite the intensity of the cold.  The linke of carriages stretched without interruption from the Place Louis XV to the porte Maillot, between two lines of soldiers of the watch.  The carriages circulated more freely in the Bois de Bolognes which was guarded only by the marechaussee.  Outstanding among the marvels were two carriages made of porcelain.  The first, occupied by the duchesse de Valentinois, was pulled by four dapple-grey horses with crimson silk harnesses embroidered with silver.  The second belonged to an "impure", mademoiselle Beaupré.  It reappeared the next year with a Prince of the Blood, the duc de Chartres, as an outrider, which, said Bachaumont, "did not increase his standing in public esteem".

In spite of the presence of Monsieur, of the comte and comtesse of Artois, and the duc and the duchesse of Bourbon, the Longchamp of 1781 was a sad one.  For several years, there had been a progressive reduction in the number and extravagance of the carriages, although costumes had reached a degree of extravagance that would have added splendour to a display of fashion  anywhere in the world....Massive carriages had been replaced by cabriolets imported from England, wiskys or garricks, light vehicles, but of a prodigious height, so that people seeing them pass would say, "There go people who want to light the street lamps"...The remarkable beauties of 1786 were the demoiselles Adelaie and Deschamps, both from the Comédie Italienne.  The first had received from M. de Weymeranges, intendant of the post a present of a thousand louis for her Longchamp.

The Revolution suspended Longchamp.  How could it have been otherwise?  Horses were commandeered for service in fourteen armies and blood flowed on the former Place Louis XV......

An important modification introduced in the Longchamp of 1787 temporarily restored its original brilliance. They abandoned the uneven and sandy route from the abbey and adopted the road that went from La Muette to Madrid.  Bachaumont reported that people couldn't recall in a long time such a crowd of people, so many beautiful and bizarre carriages;  the wiskys stood out particularly. Many of the young bloods and women acquired  themselves a different vehicle  for each day  One particularly bizarre and galant wisky excited comment.  This wisky was surmounted by a figure of Folly with its sceptre; inside were four marionettes, two of each sex, waving to the right and to the left without cease; all this was drawn by an prettily harnessed donkey, with a jockey steering the animal.   On the side of the carriage could be read:  Where do I  come from?  Where am I going? Where am I?  They called it the parody of Longchamp, since it seemed to be offered as a criticism.  Whatever the case, these events pleased the marquis de Villette, who is said today to have been the creator.

The Château du Grand-Lucé gets a makeover

In 2003 the 18th-century Château du Grand-Lucé in the Loire Valley was offered for sale by the Department of Sarthe and, after a lengthy application process,  bought by Californian interior designer Timothy Corrigan. For once this is a happy story of private ownership. The chateau, which was an empty shell, has been lavishly refurbished and now has a new lease of life as an upmarket event venue.  Admittedly access for ordinary mortals is strictly limited though the gardens, which had already been partly renovated and opened to the public, can still be visited on Sunday afternoons in the summer.

Marie-Antoinette and Count Fersen: love decrypted

In recent years experts have been scrutinising the cipher used by Marie-Antoinette and Count Axel von Fersen in their correspondence after the failure of the flight to Varennes (June 1791 to August 1792)  In this period Ferson, now exiled in Stockholm, acted as intermediary between the royal family and the King of Sweden; the cipher served to disguise diplomatically sensitive negotiations, and also perhaps to conceal the intimacy between the couple. Only the letters which were in Ferson's possession survive. In 1877 Fersen's grand-nephew, the Baron R. M. de Klinckowström published some sixty letters, together with Fersen's Journal intime, but censored them heavily.  It was long believed that Klinckowström had destroyed the originals  but  in 1982 the manuscripts were offered for sale by his descendants and purchased by the Archives Nationales: AN 440AP comprises 51 letters and a further 13 remain conserved in Stockholm. Many are written in cipher or have passages in invisible ink.  Some have heavy crossings out - though whether by Fersen himself, Klinckowström or some other hand is not known.  

Theodore Besterman and the politics of Voltaire studies

Voltaire was a great admirer of the "English nation", and that admiration has been amply repaid by the attention of modern British scholars.  In particular, it is at first sight surprising that the massive ongoing enterprise of publishing the new, definitive Complete Works is based not, as one might expect, in France but at the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford.

Jean Huber, Un dîner de philosophes, 1772 ou 1773, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford

The reason for English involvement doesn't really need much explanation - it is the legacy of one energetic and dominant personality, Theodore Besterman.  

Besterman at Les Délices

An Englishman of Polish descent, Besterman was not an academic but had followed an extreme successful career as a writer, researcher and bibliographer.  From the 1950s he devoted himself entirely to Voltaire studies, embarking upon the considerable project of editing Voltaire's letters. To a man of Besterman's mindset the only appropriate setting for such a labour was a residence of the great man himself.  He set his sights on Les Délices, the house in Geneva where Voltaire had lived between 1754 and 1760.


In 1929 the City of Geneva had been called upon to purchase Les Délices in order to safeguard the legacy of Voltaire but had yet to carry out extensive renovations or determine its final use. Besterman proposed to develop a research centre and museum; in return for funding for the necessary works, he agreed to place at the disposal of the municipality his collection of Voltaire-related paintings and works of art, together with his extensive archive of autograph letters and other manuscripts.  The renovations took place between December 1951 and Autumn 1954.The first floor became two apartments with three bathrooms for Mr and Mrs Besterman, and the attic was arranged to accommodate a housekeeper and maid.  The new Institut et Musée Voltaire was solemnly inaugurated on 2nd October 1754.


Over the next decade Besterman published prolifically: the two large volumes of Voltaire’s Notebooks appeared in 1952, the first volume of his magisterial edition of Voltaire’s correspondence in 1953 (it was107 volumes by 1965 when a second, ‘definitive’, edition was begun). His biography of Voltaire appeared in 1962. Besterman admitted his total identification  with his subject:  "For forty years I have been a Voltaire enthusiast, for twenty I have passed all my days in his company; for six I have lived in his house, slept in his room, in his library read his letters, opened his correspondance, explored his most intimate secrets;  I have become, longo intervallo, almost Voltaire himself...."
The biography was admired for its scrupulous scholarship, though reviewers such as Peter Gay felt it lacked sufficient 18th-century context.  Besterman's Voltaire was an urban freethinker; his approach contrasted with that of the leading French expert René Pomeau, whose La Religion de Voltaire (1953) had emphasised Voltaire;s serious engagement with the philosophical preoccupations of his time.

As well as pursuing his own research, Besterman orchestrated a prodigious amount of activity from scholars around the world. The International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies - which today has its secretariat in Oxford at the Voltaire Foundation - .first met in the Château de Coppet outside Geneva in 1963: "It was memorable for the talks, the atmosphere, and the generous organisation including a dinner in the château at Chillon, ending with large sugar ‘cygnes du lac’ and a late-night private steamer back along the lake to Geneva" (Barber, 2010, p.4.) The Society continues to hold four-yearly conferences - though sadly not on so lavish an entertainment budget. There are thirty or so national affiliated societies. La Société Française d'étude du 18e siècle was founded in 1964 but, under the successive presidencies of Jean Guéhenno, Jean Fabre et Yvon Belaval, it was from the first firmly under the aegis of French academia.

In 1971 Besterman came into serious conflict with the city of Geneva, when he attempted to raise funds by the sale at Sotheby's of materials which were considered part of the museum's assets.  The Institut was closed down and a warrant issued for Besterman's arrest on the grounds that he was in possession of stolen papers. Fortunately for him he was attending the ISEC conference in Nancy at the time and, with the tacit collusion of the French government, managed to allude the Genevan authorities.   He now settled permanently in England.

Following Besterman's departure, the  Institut et Musée Voltaire, now simply the Musée Voltaire, became part of the Bibliothèque de Genève.  Its director for the next thirty years was the Rousseau scholar Charles Wirz (1973-2002) who is universally praised for his diplomatic and creative leadership.  The present director is François Jacob, formerly a director of studies at the University of  Franche-Comté. Between 1989 and 1994.  Charles Wirz presided over the renovation of the property in preparation for the tricentenary celebrations.  The library welcomes visiting scholars and the beautiful museum is open to the general public - well worth a visit!

Besterman in Oxford

Returning to England, Besterman lived for a time in St James' but later moved to Northhamptonshire where he acquired the old manor of Thorpe Manderville, a late 18th-century ironstone house. Here he was within easy reach of London, of his printer in Banbury and of the facilities of the University of Oxford.

On 10 November 1976, following Besterman's death, the Voltaire Foundation was created and vested permanently in the University of Oxford, which Besterman named as his residual legatee.  Besterman's books and manuscripts were also transferred to a dedicated "Voltaire Room" in the Taylor Institution (Modern Languages Faculty library). The core mission of the new Foundation was to be the publication of a new Complete Works of Voltaire.  Andrew Brown, Besterman's former secretary, became its first director. There was at first some doubt as to the scholarly standing of the Foundation's publishing enterprise.  According to Haydn Mason, "concerns were allayed" by René Pomeau's agreement to edit the critical edition of Candide for the Complete Works. (It appeared in 1980). In the 1980s and 90s the Foundation produced not only the works of Voltaire but new editions of other Enlightenment thinkers, notably the correspondence of Rousseau.   It also published the four-volume biography Voltaire et son temps, a monumental project directed by René Pomeau.  The Foundation's monograph series Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth century  (now Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment) currently runs to over 160 volumes.

The "Voltaire Room" at the Taylor Institution, Oxford

Andrew Brown at Ferney

In 1998 the Foundation was rocked by a scandal which Voltaire himself would have relished, when its long-time director Andrew Brown was forced to resign under a cloud. What exactly happened has not been made  public.  There were hints of financial mismanagement. According to the official statement Mr Brown face disciplinary charges "relating to the competence of his management of staff" .   He first agreed to take "special leave" then in 1998 resigned altogether. His wife Ulla Thulying who was in charge of editing the Complete Works also departed.

Andrew Brown

Taking a leaf from his mentor's book, Mr Brown then found a Voltaire residence of his own and settled in Ferney-Voltaire close to Voltaire's chateau, which the State was about to purchase.  In May 1999 he founded a new Voltaire organisation, the Société Voltaire, with a brief for "the encouragement, promotion and co-ordination of all studies, research and publications relating to Voltaire". He has since since become actively - and fruitfully - involved with the Association Voltaire à Ferney, the organisation which oversees the heritage of Voltaire at the chateau.  Mr Brown and his wife now also preside over the Centre international d’étude du xviiie siècle which has published a range of 18th-century editions. (This sounds like it has some sort of official status, but I am not sure...)

In response to Mr Brown's new society, in June 2000 the Voltaire Foundation set up the Société des Études Voltairiennes (SEV)  with a virtually identical mission:"to promote, encourage and co-ordinate all studies, research and publications relative to Voltaire". Slightly farcically, both organisations claimed the inspiration of René Pomeau who, shortly before his death in 2000, suggested that a dedicated Voltaire organisation should be set up on French soil.  The SEV had stronger ties with French academia: it is based at the Sorbonne, and has close links with the University of Lyon which hosts its website:  its Revue Voltaire is published by the Presses Universitaires de la Sorbonne (PUPS).

Confusion reigned for a while but, fifteen years on, some sort of modus vivendi has been established between the rival societies and publications. In an interview in 2015 Andrew Brown, who was riding high after his involvement in the discovery of Madame du Châtelet's scientific manuscripts, defended the need for two Voltaire associations; he has buried the hatchet with the Sorbonne, though not yet, it may be inferred, with his former colleagues in Oxford.


The Voltaire Foundation today

At the beginning of the new century the Foundation was reported to be in severe financial difficulties and was desperately casting around for sponsorship.  The new director Nicholas Cronk improved matters by undertaking to finish the Complete Works by 2018 (which means a smart publication schedule of  six volumes per year)  The Foundation has also moved into e-publication as part of the "Electronic Enlightenment" project which was launched in 2008.  I suspect, however, that the long term future remains uncertain.  One problem is that the Foundation's publications, the Electronic Enlightenment included, remain eye-wateringly expensive and beyond the reach of all but the largest university libraries; "ordinary" dix-huitièmistes are lucky to see more than a Google Books snippet.  I do wonder if at least some of this scholarship be made available at a more modest price?  I am sure Voltaire (if not Theodore Besterman) would approve.


List of relevant websites

Voltaire Foundation
Voltaire Foundation website
http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/default.ssi

Voltaire Foundation blog
https://voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/ 

Société des études voltairiennes (SEV)
http://voltaire.lire.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/

The Electronic Enlightenment
http://www.e-enlightenment.com/


Besterman and the Voltaire Foundation

Giles Barber "Biography of Theodore Besterman, founder of the Voltaire Foundation", February 2010.[on the Voltaire Foundation Website]
http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/about_us/documents/Bbiog4Vfwebsitev3.pdf

Haydn Mason, "A history of the Voltaire Foundation"[on the Voltaire Foundation website]
http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/about_us/documents/History-of-VF.pdf

Tristram Besterman, "Theodore Deodatus Nathaniel Besterman: a personal memoir of his step-grandfather" March 2015 [on the Voltaire Foundation website]
http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/about_us/documents/Besterman-memoir.pdf

Aurélie Julia, "Voltaire in Oxford: the Voltaire Foundation" (2011)
http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/newsEvents/VoltaireFoundation_RevueDeuxMondes_Eng.pdf

Clare Fletcher, "Besterman’s commitment to the Eighteenth Century is still alive"  Voltaire Foundation blog, post dated 4th February 2014.
https://voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/tag/theodore-besterman/

Robert Wokler, "Preparing the definitive edition of the Correspondance de Rousseau", Rousseau, the Age of Enlightenment, and Their Legacies (2012)  p.145-155
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=g2he0PsjadsC&pg=PA145#v=onepage&q&f=false


Les Délices

Bibliothèque de Genève,  Musée Voltaire - présentation
http://institutions.ville-geneve.ch/fr/bibliotheque-de-geneve/connaitre-la-bibliotheque/sites/musee-voltaire/presentation


Later quarrels in Oxford

Julian Coman ,"Oxford exile enlists French in war for Voltaire's legacy" The Telegraph 17/09/2000
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1355782/Oxford-exile-enlists-French-in-war-for-Voltaires-legacy.html

Sir Alan Budd, Letter dated February 2002 concerning the resignation of Andrew Brown [on the Voltaire Foundation website]
http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/newsEvents/budd.ssi

Interview with Andrew Brown, 21/08/2014 Gazette des Délices 42 Summer 2014.  .
http://institutions.ville-geneve.ch/wwwextras/bge-gazette/42/grand_salon.html



Andrew Brown at Ferney

Vincent Noce, "'Etat acquiert le château de Voltaire. Ferney a été vendu par Christie's pour 17 millions de francs" Libération, 6 June 1998 .
http://next.liberation.fr/culture/1998/06/06/l-etat-acquiert-le-chateau-de-voltaire-ferney-a-ete-vendu-par-christie-s-pour-17-millions-de-francs_240613

La Société Voltaire.
http://www.societe-voltaire.org/societe.php

Centre international d'étude du XVIIIe siècle de Ferney-Voltaire 

http://c18.net/18/a.php?nom=c_accueil

Association Voltaire à Ferney blog
http://blog.voltaire-a-ferney.org/

For the New Year....

Here, to wish you a New Year of plenty and happiness, is an exuberant Still Life with Silver painted by Alexandre François Desportes, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum. 

According to the notice:"This picture, probably painted in the 1720s, belongs to a type showing a buffet laden with an array of objects in silver, porcelain, and semi-precious stone as well as fruit—such as might have been displayed for a banquet. The objects may record actual pieces owned by the patron: the dragon-handled tureen and vermeil salvers are in the Régence style (ca. 1715–23)"

In fact the entire contents of a princely cupboard - platters, ewers, vases - seem to have been unpacked for the delectation of the viewer, together with a suitably lush array of flowers and fruit.   It has been suggested that the painting may  represent an epigram from Terence Sine Cere et Libero friget Venus("Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus will freeze"): Ceres is represented by the harvested fruits and Bacchus by the presiding satyr and ram's heads. To make the message explicit, the silver tureen in the centre has a cartouche representing Venus and Amor.

They certainly did not go in for understatement in the early eighteenth century - this magnificent monster is some 8ft 6 in by 6 feet and would have required a room on the grand scale to accommodate it. 

Desportes's patron is unknown, though in the later 18th century the painting possibly belonged to Louis XV's former finance minister Jean-Baptiste de Machault d'Arnouville and adorned the Château d'Arnouville.

References

"Still Life with Silver", Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection online

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/436186

Metropolitan Museum of Art  Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe," [Exhibition of July 1–September 21, 2008].  No. 101.  Catalogue, p.278-9.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8BhU48TL-bcC&pg=PA278#v=onepage&q&f=false