Father Menoux - Jesuit preacher and missionary

The Jesuit priest Father Joseph Menoux is remembered today, if at all, chiefly as an adversary of Voltaire. He warrants barely a footnote in the great sea of Voltaire studies or, at best, a repetition of Voltaire's own dismissive caricatures.  I decided to try and discover a little more about Menoux's life. It  proved to be an interesting exercise, and one which supplies something of an alternative perspective on the world of the Enlightenment writers. 

Early life

Sadly, there is not a single anecdote or petty detail to enliven the perfunctory outline of Menoux's early life supplied by the biographical dictionaries.  We learn only that he was born in Besançon on 14th October 1695 - making him not quite a year younger than Voltaire  -, that he belonged to an "excellent famille de robe", and that he was always destined for an ecclesiastical career.  He began his studies with the Jesuits at the age of fourteen and remained in the order; we can assume that he attended the Jesuit college in Besançon, the imposing buildings of which still survive today.   He entered the Novitiate on 8th September 1711 and, having taught in a number of colleges, was singled out by his eloquence for a career as a preacher. 

The Jesuit college in Besançon  - now College Victor-Hugo
https://structurae.net/en/structures/college-victor-hugo 

The preacher

In 18th-century Catholic France a talented preacher could command a great deal of prestige.  Jesuits like Bourdaloue, and more recently, Charles Porée (d.1741), star of the Parisian house, attracted huge crowds.  They rubbed shoulders with the highest echelons of society, and attracted attention from the  Enlightenment world of culture and letters - to which the Jesuits themselves contributed through their Journal de Trévoux edited from the Maison professe in Paris.

On the road with Voltaire

Joseph Highmore, Painting showing a scene from Richardson's Pamela, 1744. 
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge  (Wikimedia)

Travel by road was hazardous in the 18th century, even for those who could afford the luxury of  a private coach and good horses.  The account which follows is taken from the memoirs of Voltaire's secretary Longchamp, who accompanied  Mme du Châtelet and Voltaire on an eventful journey from Paris to Cirey in the late 1740s.  Today the same journey by car (so Google Maps informs me) would take three-and-a-half  hours.

Voltaire in Lunéville

Voltaire reading his play Seminaris to King Stanislas, lithograph by the 19c Spanish artist, Vicente García de Paredes (1845-1903).
Private collection (Meisterdrucke)

There is a whole scholarly industry centred on Voltaire and, now, almost as much ink spilt on on Émilie du Châtelet and her scientific works.  What follows is merely intended to summarise Voltaire's various sojourns at the Court of Lorraine and ask what evidence remains to evoke his physical surroundings.  The chronology of events is taken mostly from the René Vaillot's book in the "Voltaire en son temps" series, Avec Madame du Châtelet, published in 1988.

The visit of May-June 1735  [Vaillot, p.17-20]

• The chronology of Voltaire's earliest trips to Lorraine has recently been revised.  In a letter to the président Hénault, traditionally dated to 1729, he describes how he and two friends made a round trip to Nancy in order to avail themselves of an issue of government shares [D366]. This letter, and hence the episode, has now been redated to1720 to fit with in financial records for Lorraine.  See André Courbet, "Voltaire en Lorraine: les séjours de 1720 et 1735", Cahiers Voltaire, No.13 (2014) p.51-67. https://c18.net/18img/cv13-specimen.pdf

• Nonetheless, Voltaire undoubtedly did accompany the duc de Richelieu to the spa at Plombières, and probably also to Nancy, on more than one occasion in the late 1720s.

• A more substantial sojourn took place in 1735. Voltaire had arrived in Paris from Cirey on 30th March,  but six weeks later, on 12th May, he fled the capital for Lorraine in the company of the duchesse de Richelieu. His motives are not altogether certain - possibly he had delivered to an ultimatum to Mme du Châtelet  to stay with Maupertius in Paris or retire to Cirey to study with him. The Duchess was on friendly terms with the dowager Duchess Elisabeth-Charlotte and  Voltaire had left a reputation in 1729 as a gen d'esprit and was greeted with joyous familiarity.  A court with reputation for its love of poetry, theatre, belles-lettres and the arts.  In his letters frequents familiarly the prince de Beauvau-Craon and his numerous children, and attends balls, concerts, comedies; the Court had a theatre and troupe of actors.  Physics was all the rage.  He saw the "salle de machine" where the the duke's machinist Philippe Vairinge,  "simple serrurier devenu philosophe" , built his own apparatus and gave lectures [D870, 15th May].  The duchesse de Richelieu even gave a lecture on the theories of Newton, at which the Jesuit  Dallemant, caused amusement to onlookers by engaging in disputation [D882, c.20th June] .Voltaire returned to Cirey on 25th June. 

Engraving of Voltaire by the Lunéville artist Jean-Joseph Bernard (1740-1803) , 

writing master to the pages and écrivain du roi from 1763.  Musée du château. 

See  L'Est Republicain, 27.08.2017

Rococo dreams

To enjoy for Christmas....

These gorgeous, beautifully re-imagined, rococo interiors are by Vicente García de Paredes, a Spanish artist who settled in Paris in 1884 where he specialised in 18th-century genre scenes.  His watercolours were very popular at the time and were widely reproduced, notably in Le Monde Illustré. They appear regularly at auction.

"Her Best Hand" - sold by Sotheby's in 2018

"The Raconteur" - sold by Christie's in 2015

The posthumous history of King Stanislas

Cenotaph of King Stanislas, Église Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours, Nancy

Death and autopsy

It had taken King Stanislas eighteen long days to die.  

Immediately following his death, he was laid out on his bed, with his face and hands uncovered, surrounded by candles.  Six canons from Lunéville sang prayers around the body. The doors to the apartment remained open and people were free to enter.

The following day, Monday 24th February, at six in the morning, the body was transported into the "chambre de la balustrade" (which room was this?  I'm not sure). Here it was exposed on a lit de parade, again surrounded by candles.  The clergy and Court officials were seated nearby with careful attention to rank: on the right was an armchair to accommodate the Cardinal de Choiseul-Beaupré, Stanislas's Grand Almoner, with stools for his confessor Father Louskina and the other palace chaplains; on the left were folding chairs for the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber and principal officers of the Royal Household.  Beyond the balustrade two altars had been set up, draped in black, where masses could be said. Six members of the regular clergy sang psalms continuously.

The death of King Stanisłas

"Tout ce qui est humain ne fait espérer de bon"
(All that is human gives no hope for good)

King Stanislas to Marie Leszczyńska, 3rd February 1766 
[probably the last words he ever wrote in his own hand]

The death of Stanislas.  From an illustration by Ksawery Pillati for the collection "Images of Polish princes and kings" (1888). [Wikimedia]

On Wednesday 5th February 1766, at about half-past-seven in the morning, the aged Stanisłas Leszczyński, former King of Poland, now Duke of Lorraine, was alone in his chamber at Lunéville when he accidentally fell into the open fire and sustained serious burns.  Despite the best endeavours of his doctors, he suffered terrible agonies and died eighteen days later.  Both at the time and subsequently, there were rumours of negligence on the part of Stanislas's attendants.  However, since there were no eye-witnesses, what happened can never be known with absolute certainty.

An urban vision: Saint-Dié-des-Vosges

Saint-Dié was rebuilt without delay on the best conceived of plans, with the wide, clean, spacious, strictly aligned streets that we see today. The layout reproduces the regular beauty of Nancy and, with its modern pavements and  continually flowing fountains, makes this one of the most attractive town in the Vosges.  

Charles Charton, Les Vosges pittoresques et historiques (1841), p.225. 

A search for traces of  King Stanislas in Lorraine takes us, rather unexpectedly, to Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, ninety kilometres to the south-east of Nancy.  Under Stanislas's benevolent gaze, following a devastating fire in 1757,  this little town deep in the Vosges Mountains became the site of a noteworthy essay in Enlightenment urban planning.

Château de la Favorite - heritage in danger

Une Favorite - "a woman who costs a lot, but gives great pleasure"

This photo and the those below are from Wikimedia, taken in 2011 

This sad little building, just a stone's throw away from the Château in Lunéville, is the "Petit  Château" or "Château de la Favorite",  once the residence of Leopold's youngest son, Charles-Alexander. Like the palace itself, it is the work of the renowned 18th-century architect Germain Boffrand.  In 1999 the property was sold off by the municipality, and, since that time, "it has not ceased to deteriorate" . 

Mesdames in Lorraine, 1761 and 1762

In 1761, and again in 1762, the Princesses Adélaïde and Victoire visited Lorraine to take the waters at Plombières and to enjoy the extravagant hospitality of their grandfather King Stanislas. These occasions were the subject of several published narratives, which offer an great deal of, otherwise unavailable, circumstantial detail.

The accounts also contain some of the best descriptions of Stanislas's lost Rococo spaces, not only the permanent architecture, but also the extravagant ephemeral structures and carefully stage displays which gave them life.  

 We also catch a rare personal glimpse of the princesses, two lively and obliging young women who were surrounded by luxury but who also endured lives of incredible constraint. 

Madame Adélaïde (right) and Madame Victoire (left). 
From a snuffbox in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, dated to around 1761-2 [Wikimedia]. 

Here are some of the highlights, summarised from the two fullest (and most easy accessible) publications.  The first is the Relation  of Charles-Jean-Baptiste Delespine (1705-1787),  huissier du cabinet to the Dauphine, who accompanied the princesses from France on their visit. Delespine  ran the little printing works at the château of Versailles and was the son-in-law of the royal printer Guillaume II Desprez, so this is in effect the official account.  The second is the Journal of  Fillion de Charigneu, Lieutenant in the Footguards of the King of Poland (See References for details; the black-and-white pictures are from Delespine's book.)

Stanislas - Grandfather

Here are some notes from another of Pierre Boyé's evocative studies, this time concerning King Stanislas's relationship with his grandchildren, the offspring of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska.  Boyé's article was originally published in the Mémoires of the Lorraine Archaeological Society in 1922 where it prefaces a collection relevant documents, and letters from Stanislas's copious correspondence.  

Births

"If ever anyone, after the marriage of a cherished child, was eager to become a grandparent",  writes Pierre Boyé, "that person was was Stanislas". Clearly, apart from any personal considerations there were huge political and  dynastic interests at stake. 

The marriage between Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska took place on 5th September 1725.  At this time Stanislas, and his consort Catherine Opalińska were resident at Chambord.  "Astonishing notes" from the duc de Bourbon and Cardinal de Rohan made Stanislas privy to the intimate secrets of the royal wedding night.  After months of false alarms and anxiety, in March 1727 he was finally able to announce with joy his daughter's first pregnancy.  His correspondents were treated to bulletins on the most private details of her condition  - Pierre Boyé found himself "embarrassed to follow the King of Poland into such territory"(p.219-220).

On 7th May he reported that she has felt the first movements of her "precious fruit"; on 25th that she has her first milk.  On 1st June he announces that a pastoral instruction had been issued, by order of Louis XV, to implore divine mercy for a safe delivery.

On morning of 14th August 1727, Marie Leszczynska  gave birth to twin girls, Louise-Élisabeth and Henriette. A courier hurried with the news to Dyé-sur-Loire where the Polish royal couple were taking refuge from the malaria-ridden swamps of Chambord.  On the 23rd, Stanislas visited his new granddaughters in Versailles, and pronounced himself enraptured by the two "little dolls".

Madame Louise-Élisabeth of France and her twin sister Henriette.
Attributed to Pierre Gobert. Château de Versailles (Wikimedia)