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  • Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, 28A. Œuvres de 1742–1745 (I)
  • Síofra Pierse
Voltaire: Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, 28A. Œuvres de 1742–1745 (I). Edited by Olivier Ferret, Russell Goulbourne, Ralph A. Nablow and David Williams. Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 2006. xxv + 528 pp. Hb.

Volume 28A is another stunning volume from the Complete Works of Voltaire team that will give great physical pleasure to readers for centuries to come. It boasts lovely paper, editorial excellence and a wonderful sense of permanence. One element alone detracts from it: the title Œuvres de 17421745 (I) camouflages the fact that this volume houses many fascinating works of Voltaire’s mid-career. Unless proper, detailed indexing is urgently provided by the Voltaire Foundation on a future state-of-the-art website, readers may inadvertently overlook the gems contained within volume 28A and similar compilation volumes, and this would be a terrible shame. Russell Goulbourne takes a fresh, prefatory look at 1742–1745, or Voltaire’s pre-Versailles years, as the philosophe curries favour to become a courtier of Louis XV. David Williams presents the short Fragment sur la corruption du style, where Voltaire argues that ‘le mélange des styles’ is the antithesis of good literary practice. Only fragments remain of Voltaire’s farcical comedy Thérèse. Goulbourne notes how during its conception D’Argental warned Voltaire that Thérèse was in poor taste; it was subsequently withdrawn and never performed. Olivier Ferret unravels the labyrinthine editorial history of the brief, but caustic, A M.*** sur le mémoire de Desfontaines, highlighting the fact that Voltaire hides behind the persona of Malicourt in order to insult Desfontaines with greater vehemence. Within the short essay Sur la police des spectacles, Williams situates the venomous irony with which Voltaire denounces the Gallican church’s hypocrisy in excommunicating actors of the Comédie-Française, effectively placing them on a par with witches. Voltaire’s comédie-ballet La Princesse de Navarre was first performed at a 1745 royal wedding, receiving a positive contemporary reception, but only after myriad teething difficulties between Voltaire and the notoriously temperamental Rameau. Goulbourne traces the opera’s unhappy and labour-intensive genesis, contrasting this with its royal propagandistic values, propelled by themes of victory, honour and love. The similarly court-commissioned opera-ballet Le Temple de la Gloire [End Page 212] was another work of royal propaganda for Louis XV’s court, which fused history with mythology, and which, as Goulbourne notes, Voltaire lived to regret. Intended as a celebration of Fontenoy, this was the final collaboration between Voltaire and Rameau and the allegory was a great success with the king, who was implicitly compared with emperor Trajan. Ralph A. Nablow presents the final section of this collection, subtitled Shorter verse of 17421745 and housing nearly 40 poetic pieces, dedicated to a range of personages, including Mme Du Châtelet, Swedish princesses, duchesses, King Frederick of Prussia, a Frisian poet, and the marquise de Pompadour. They include typically humorous offerings, often in quatrains, such as the cheeky Vers sur un dindon à l’ail. Voltaire’s adoring character-sketch of Émilie, ‘les livres, les bijoux, les compas, les pompons’, figures in Étrennes à madame Du Châtelet. Some rather gushing poetry addressed to various royal figures, not least the sycophantic couplet Impromptu sur une rose que le roi de Prusse donna à Voltaire, reflects Voltaire’s eagerness to curry royal favour and recognition throughout these key, if rather whirlwind, years.

Síofra Pierse
UCD, Dublin
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