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Updated: July 15, 2025
I gave him a description of the party at Boulainvilliers'. He seemed much interested in this, and showed more shrewdness than I should have given him credit for in discussing the various characters of the /literati/ of the day.
'Pity a poor orphan of the blood of Valois, she piped; 'alms, in God's name, for two orphans of the blood of Valois! When she brought home little she was cruelly flogged, so she says, and occasionally she deviated into the truth. A kind lady, the Marquise de Boulainvilliers, investigated her story, found it true, and took up the Valois orphans.
She laid claim to left-handed descent from the royal line of Valois, and, her claim supported by the Marchioness Boulainvilliers, who had befriended her, she had obtained from the Crown a small pension, and had married the unscrupulous Marc Antoine de la Motte, a young soldier in the Burgundy regiment of the Gendarmerie.
All his courtiers had the same opinion of themselves; and I dare say the beaux garcons of Queen Anne's reign would say that not one of King Charley's gang knew what love was. Oh! 'tis a strange circle of revolutions, that love! Like the earth, it always changes, and yet always has the same materials." "L'amour, l'amour, toujours l'amour, with Count Anthony Hamilton!" said Boulainvilliers.
"Impossible!" said Boulainvilliers, gravely, "piety is as natural to kings as flattery to their courtiers: are we not told that they are made in God's own image?" "If that were true," said Count Hamilton, somewhat profanely, "if that were true, I should no longer deny the impossibility of Atheism!"
"What is that you say of Tacitus, Huet?" said Boulainvilliers. "That his wisdom arose from his malignancy," answered Huet. "He is a perfect penetrator* into human vices, but knows nothing of human virtues. Do you think that a good man would dwell so constantly on what is evil? Believe me no.
"Of course, the historian, Boulainvilliers, advocates the 'Germany, from its mention of the origin of the feudal system, that incomparable bundle of excellences, which Le Comte de Boulainvilliers has declared to be /le chef d'oeuvre de l'esprit humain/; and which the same gentleman regrets, in the most pathetic terms, no longer exists in order that the seigneur may feed upon /des gros morceaux de boeuf demi-cru/, may hang up half his peasants /pour encourager les autres/, and ravish the daughters of the defunct /pour leur donner quelque consolation./"
She was a quick-witted, bright-eyed, brazen-faced hussy, not beautiful, but with lively pretty ways, and indeed somewhat fascinating. Her protectress, the countess de Boulainvilliers, was now dead; while she was alive Jeanne had once visited her at de Rohan's palace of Saverne, and had thus scraped a slight acquaintance with the gay Cardinal, which she resumed during her abode at Paris.
Voltaire was certainly not the author of this scandalous book. How could he be? Did not the title-page plainly show that it was the work of Frère Cucufin, or the uncle of Abbé Bazin, or the Comte de Boulainvilliers, or the Emperor of China? And so the game proceeded; and so all France laughed; and so all France read. Two forms of this light literature Voltaire made especially his own.
And, indeed, I am not unwilling to have a little relaxation of pleasure, after all these dull and dusty travails of state. What say you to Boulainvilliers to-night? you are asked?" "Yes! all the wits are to be there, Anthony Hamilton, and Fontenelle, young Arouet, Chaulieu, that charming old man. Let us go, and polish away the wrinkles of our hearts.
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