Voltaire's Beatings: Part IV

In Brief

In this final part of the Voltaire's beatings series, our hero actually gets someone else for a change: a blowhard actor insults the poet's girlfriend, and winds up in jail due to the poet's mildly influential connections. About time the Frenchie himself succeeded at something.

Party On

You might also be interested in: Voltaire's Beatings: Part II Voltaire gets the snot beat out of him. Again. Voltaire's Beatings: Part I Voltaire gets the snot beat out of him. Again. Voltaire's Beatings: Part III Voltaire gets the snot beat out of him. Again. De Sade De Sade was apparently not only a man with interesting tastes, but one with a knack for jailbreaks.

Voltaire wrote a play based on the Greek classic Oedipus Rex when he was about eighteen (1714-ish). If our silly pictures of Voltaire don't sufficiently convey his physical presence, we'll give you a nice comment from the French philosopher Rousseau about Voltaire around that time, as detailed by Aldridge in Voltaire and the Century of Light:

To Rousseau he seemed "to be about seventeen years old, with a rather poor physiognomy, but with a lively and alert expression."[1] Rousseau had no business commenting on anyone's undistinguished looks, since he was himself conspicuous for an ugly contorted mouth.

Apparently they had a falling out, since Voltaire later charged that Rousseau was a homosexual (!!) and that Rousseau's cobbler father had once made shoes for him. (?) While not directly pertinent to this month's beating, we decided that Voltaire's attempt to insult Rousseau by claiming the man's father did his job could not be ignored.

Anyway, Voltaire took this lively and alert expression to the regent and tried to leave a good impression because he wanted funding. The regent, charmed, told Voltaire he wanted him in "the Department of Foolery". Voltaire declined, saying there was too much competition and pointed to four secretaries of state who happened to be there. This charmed the regent, who liked Voltaire for a little while until Voltaire announced to the world that the regent impregnated his own daughter (chronicled in Voltaire's Beatings part II). Predictably, this earned Voltaire a speedy trip to the Bastille.

Fortunately, Voltaire was released about a year later and got his play about Oedipus produced. At the time he'd also been having this affair with an "actress", one Mademoiselle Suzanne de Livry, who had convinced him to let her play the leading female role. Aldridge offers the following account of her portrayal: "Suzanne delivered her lines with the heavy accent of the provinces, which appeared ludicrous to the sophisticated Parisians. They laughed audibly during passages that were intended to be touching or tragic." [Recall that a chief plot point in Oedipus Rex is that Oedipus sleeps with his mother; not at all the sort of stuff audiences ought to find giggly.] Paul Poisson (his name means "fish" in French), one of the actors in the production, traded a few choice words with Voltaire about Mademoiselle Livry's performance. Predictably, he was trounced verbally by the witty playwright. Actors being sensitive types, and, in this case, expert swordsmen, Poisson challenged Voltaire to a duel. Unfortunately, Voltaire was spindly and flaccid. While it was honorable enough to decline duels on the grounds of mismatched competition in those days, Voltaire opted instead to tell Poisson that he wouldn't have anything to do with somebody of such low social standing. Those with a sense of historical irony will note Voltaire spent his life trying to endear himself to folks who considered him to be a man of low social standing. "An actor!" he probably said snootily. "Imagine that!"

Poisson, incensed, brandished a cudgel and threatened to thump Voltaire soundly with it. In keeping with the general protocol of brutal public beatings, we can imagine a large crowd gathering outside the theater. Voltaire, ever the pragmatist, called out for police protection, and left the theatre. This almost certainly disappointed the crowd. Eager to reclaim their interest, Voltaire hired two thugs to administer a hearty beating to Poisson the next morning. (We here at the History House pine for the days when corporal punishment for hire was so easily obtained.) That particular morning the actor had the good sense to flee, showing his true colors as a pantywaist. Happily, Voltaire called some of his more influential friends and later had Poisson jailed instead. Considering the mishaps Voltaire received in life, we felt a sweet moment of success was warranted, even if it did mean blowing our heretofore unblemished record of chronicity. Remember he filled a month here with his bumps and bruises (parts I, II, and III), and we feel he deserved to pummel an actor in France. If anyone deserves public beating, it's the French. And if it has to be a Frenchman, it might as well be an actor.

Footnotes

1. Perhaps this sheds some light on Voltaire's seemingly interminable surfeit of beatings.

Bibliography

1. Alfred Owen Aldridge. Voltaire and the Century of Light. Princeton University Press, 1975.

 
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