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  • Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny, Tome XIII: 20 août 1752-30 décembre 1753. Lettres 1907-2092
  • Robin Howells
Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny, Tome XIII: 20 août 1752-30 décembre 1753. Lettres 1907-2092. Edited by Diane Beelen Woody and Aubrey Rosenberg, with Dorothy P. Arthur, M.-P. Ducretet-Powell, English Showalter, and D. W. Smith. General editor J. A. Dainard. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010. xxxiv + 500 pp., ill. Hb £99.00; €151.00; $201.00.

'De monde et de cahos j'ai la tete troublée' (p. 282). Graffigny's version of one of her favourite quotations (from Racine's Les Plaideurs) seems particularly apposite in this volume. Now a celebrated lady, thanks to the success of the Péruvienne and especially Cénie, she is visited more than ever by the 'monde'. Old friends, protectors, or hangers-on; nobility, administrators, successful or aspirant writers, admirers, and even amoureux (p. 9) are continually at her little house by the Luxembourg Gardens. She must accept the invitations of others, sometimes dining formally, or be accompanied to the theatre. She also continues to fulfil 'commissions' from Lorraine or Vienna (searching out and dispatching books, bibelots, or stuffs), and to network for those less fortunate (soliciting offices and privileges). To her correspondent Panpan she complains constantly of what she calls 'cette presserie': 'je ne vis pas, je suis toujours sur le gril, et jamais un pauvre moment' (p. 4). It makes her feel her age (she is nearly sixty) and contributes to her frequent illness (pp. 217, 423). What she wants is time to herself — to 'jouir de mon delicieux logement' (p. 327), to read, and to write. Although financially she is becoming 'moins genée' (p. 377), she still composes plays in pursuit of income, as well as for distinction, occupation, and personal satisfaction. 'Je veux de l'argent et peut-etre de la gloire, et je m'amuse. La besogne me plait' (p. 25, and see p. 351). But her dramatic writing is not going very well. Les Saturnales, composed for the children of the Imperial court in Vienna (unsuitable though it seems), is a success (p. 76). But La Baguette, resubmitted anonymously to the Théâtre-Italien and finally accepted, flops (p. 316). Phaza, also revised, is performed at the private theatre of the Comte de Clermont and well received, but she still has her doubts (p. 249). La Brioche is converted to the more didactic Les Effets de la prévention, but Duclos and Quinault demolish it (p. 372). On public theatre, as on new books, the letters in this volume are less expansive than earlier, although they allow us to trace the Querelle des Bouffons and the increasing fashion for dance. They also reflect the ubiquity of the stage in yet another way, for they are larded with theatrical quotations, identified for us in the discreetly excellent editorial notes.

The other main matter of this volume is, alas, Graffigny's bitter quarrels with Panpan. In their long personal and epistolary relationship, she has always been the dominant partner, cajoling and bullying her timid young friend. But it seems that the very successes that she has recently procured for him prompt on his part a new level of resistance. She repeatedly denounces his ingratitude and self-conceit (pp. 95 ff.). Then she attacks his perverse justification of 'feneantise' (pp. 265 ff.), which she blames on his false friends among the 'gens [. . .] du bel esprit' (p. 388). For what is at stake, she insists inexhaustibly, is true 'amitié' — which he will find in only one person. All her marvellous diatribes are also rationales for her own possessiveness, and in some sense even pleas. She needs him. [End Page 390]

Robin Howells
Birkbeck, University of London
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