Anecdotes sur la vie privée de Monsieur de Voltaire by Sébastien Longchamp (review)

themes of the essays. Although some traits defined as “Classical” in this volume apply to Romantic authors other than Musset, the collection certainly succeeds in complicating and reconfiguring Musset’s relationship to Romanticism, and individual articles provide fine analyses of his work. This book is recommended for graduate libraries. Kenyon College (OH) Mary Jane Cowles LONGCHAMP, SÉBASTIEN. Anecdotes sur la vie privée de Monsieur de Voltaire. Éd. Frédéric S. Eigeldinger et Raymond Trousson. Paris: Champion, 2009. ISBN 9782 -7253-1861-9. Pp. 339. 60 a. In 1978, W.H. Barber published an article showing that Decroix’s version of Longchamp’s published “Mémoires” (1826) was at variance with the only manuscript version of that work preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and which, in fact, has only recently been discovered. Barber proved that the overzealous Decroix rewrote Longchamp’s modest “Anecdotes,” creating a more coherent work he called Longchamp’s “Mémoires.” In the process, Decroix deformed several passages relating to Voltaire. Eigeldinger and Trousson’s new edition of both Longchamp ’s original “Anecdotes” and Decroix’s “Mémoires” sets the record straight. For the first time, it is possible to compare Longchamp’s own words with Decroix’s fanciful redaction. Longchamp was hired in 1746 as Émilie Du Châtelet’s footman . Once in the Châtelet household, Longchamp made himself useful by assisting Voltaire’s secretary copy out some of his master’s manuscripts. Voltaire, who might have taken umbrage, noted Longchamp’s neat hand. Later that same year, when his private secretary fell ill, Voltaire remembered Longchamp’s skills and took him to Fontainebleau as his private secretary-valet, a post he occupied until 1750, at which date Voltaire quit France for Berlin. Longchamp’s education was modest. He does not rank therefore alongside Voltaire’s more famous private secretaries, Collini and Wagnière. Late in life, when the Kehl edition was being printed, Longchamp provided the editors (one of whom was Decroix) with an important and hitherto unpublished manuscript: Voltaire’s Traité de métaphysique (1734). He then consigned to the same editors his personal recollections. These “Mémoires” were finally published in 1826; they quickly became celebrated as providing a unique aperçu into the domestic life of one of the eighteenth century’s most intriguing couples. Through Longchamp, for example, it has come down that the divine Émilie was in the habit of undressing in front of her male servants and that on at least one occasion she went so far as to expose herself in the bath without the slightest hint of embarrassment. Longchamp naturally gives a unique account of Voltaire’s relationship with the tempestuous Émilie and a number of anecdotes he records figure prominently in the standard biographies. For example, Longchamp is the only known source of the story that Voltaire tried to curb Émilie’s gambling by whispering in English at the Queen’s table (where she had accumulated losses of 80,000 livres) that she was “playing with a pack of cheats” (56). That incident, and its implied insult to the queen, precipitated the couple’s midnight flight from Fontainebleau and their sojourn at Sceaux under the protection of the duchesse du Maine. Also, according to Decroix, it was for the diminutive Duchess’s amusement that Voltaire composed Babouc, Memnon, Scarmentado, Micromégas, and Zadig. Longchamp, we now Reviews 561 learn, said nothing of the sort, only that Voltaire wrote (or perhaps revised) Zadig, Babouc, and other tales during his stay at Sceaux. Other less dramatic incidents include the “broken axle story” in which Voltaire and Mme Du Châtelet, stranded on a wintry night, contemplated the starry cosmos propped up on cushions and wrapped in furs: “Ravis du magnifique spectacle déployé au-dessus d’eux, ils dissertaient, en grelottant, sur la nature et le cours des astres, sur la destination de tant de globes immenses répandus dans l’espace” (178). We now know that none of this took place; that the mise en scène was entirely invented by Decroix. In short, this first edition of Longchamp’s manuscript constitutes a major and refreshing breakthrough in Voltaire studies; it demonstrates how...