129 (July, 1813.) Correspondance, Littéraire, Philosophique et Critique. Addressée à un Souverain d'Allemagne, depuis 1770 jusqu'à 1782. Par le BARON DE GRIMM, et par DIDEROT. 5 tomes, 8vo. pp. 2250. Paris: 1812. THIS is certainly a very entertaining book -though a little too bulky-and, the greater part of it, not very important. We are glad to see it, however; not only because we are glad to see any thing entertaining, but also because it makes us acquainted with a person, of whom every one has heard a great deal, and most people hitherto known very little. There is no name which comes oftener across us, in the modern history of French literature, than that of Grimm; and none, perhaps, whose right to so much notoriety seemed to most people to stand upon such scanty titles. Coming from a foreign country, without rank, fortune, or exploits of any kind to recommend him, he contrived, one does not very well see how, to make himself conspicuous for forty years in the best company of Paris; and at the same time to acquire great influence and authority among literary men of all descriptions, without publishing any thing himself, but a few slight observations upon French and Italian music. The volumes before us help, in part, to explain this enigma; and not only give proof of talents and accomplishments quite sufficient to justify the reputation the author enjoyed among his contemporaries, but also of such a degree of industry and exertion, as entitle him, we think, to a reasonable reversion of fame from posterity. our readers any part of this miscellaneous Before laying before chronicle, we shall endeavour to give them a general idea of its construction-and to tell them all that we have been able to discover about its author. upon his sitting down one evening in a seat which he had previously fixed upon for himself; but with Voltaire and D'Alembert, and all the rest of that illustrious society, both male and female, he continued always on the most cordial footing; and, while he is reproached with a certain degree of obsequiousness toward the rich and powerful, must be allowed to have used less flattery toward his literary associates than was usual in the intercourse of those jealous and artificial beings. Grimm undertook to send him regularly an When the Duke of Saxe-Gotha left Paris, account of every thing remarkable that occured in the literary, political, and scandalous chronicle of that great city; and acquitted himself in this delicate office so much to the satisfaction of his noble correspondent, that he nominated him, in 1776, his resident at the court of France, and raised him at the same time to the rank and dignity of a Baron. The volumes before us are a part of the desare certainly the most amusing state papers patches of this literary plenipotentiary; and that have ever fallen under our obversation. the functions of this philosophical diplomacy, The Baron de Grimm continued to exercise till the gathering storm of the Revolution drove both ministers and philosophers from the territories of the new Republic. He then ter, where he resided till 1795; when Cathatook refuge of course in the court of his masrine of Russia, to whose shrine he had formerly made a pilgrimage from Paris, gave him the appointment of her minister at the till the end of the reign of the unfortunate court of Saxony-which he continued to hold Paul, when the partial loss of sight obliged him to withdraw altogether from business, and to return to the court of Saxe-Gotha, where he continued his studies in literature and the arts with unabated ardour, till he sunk at last under a load of years and infirmities in the end of 1807.-He was of an uncomely and grotesque appearance with huge projecting eyes and discordant features, which he rendered still more hideous, by daubing them profusely with white and with red paint Melchior Grimm was born at Ratisbon in 1723, of very humble parentage; but, being tolerably well educated, took to literature at a very early period. His first essays were made in his own country-and, as we understand, in his native language-where he composed several tragedies, which were hissed upon the stage, and unmercifully abused in the closet, by Lessing, and the other oracles of Teatonic criticism. He then came to Paris, as a sort of tutor to the children of M. de Schomberg, and was employed in the humble capacity of reader to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, when he was first brought into notice by Rousseau, who was smitten with his enthusiasm for music, and made him known to Diderot, the Baron d'Holbach, and various years only, from 1770 to 1782, with a gap for The book embraces a period of about twelve other persons of eminence in the literary 1775 and part of 1776. It is said in the titleworld. His vivacity and various accomplish- page to be partly the work of Grimm, and ments soon made him generally acceptable; partly that of Diderot,-but the contributions while his uniform prudence and excellent of the latter are few, and comparatively of good sense prevented him from ever losing little importance. It is written half in the any of the friends he had gained. Rousseau, style of a journal intended for the public, and adeed, chose to quarrel with him for life, half in that of private and confidential cor 9 according to the most approved costume of petits-maîtres, in the year 1748, when he made his debut at Paris. out the shortest and most pleasant way to a. truths to which a short and a pleasant way can readily be discovered; and then lay it down as a maxim, that no others are worth looking after-and in the same way, they do such petty kindnesses, and indulge such light sympathies, as do not put them to any trouble, or encroach at all on their amusements,while they make it a principle to wrap them. selves up in those amusements from the assault of all more engrossing or importunate affections. respondence; and, notwithstanding the retrenchments which the editor boasts of having made in the manuscript, contains a vast miscellany of all sorts of intelligence;-critiques upon all new publications, new operas, and new performers at the theatres;-accounts of all the meetings and elections at the academies, and of the deaths and characters of all the eminent persons who demised in the period to which it extends;-copies of the epigrams, and editions of the scandalous stories that occupied the idle population of Paris during the same period-interspersed with The turn for derision again arises naturally various original compositions, and brief and out of this order of things. When passion pithy dissertations upon the general subjects and enthusiasm, affection and serious occupa that are suggested by such an enumeration. tion have once been banished by a short-sightOf these, the accounts of the operas and the ed voluptuousness, the sense of ridicule is actors are (now) the most tedious,-the criti- almost the only lively sensation that remains; cal and biographical sketches the most live--and the envied life of those who have ly, and the general observations the most nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, would striking and important. The whole, however, be utterly listless and without interest, if they 18 given with great vivacity and talent, and were not allowed to laugh at each other. with a degree of freedom which trespasses Their quickness in perceiving ordinary follies occasionally upon the borders both of pro-and illusions too, affords great encouragement priety and of good taste. There is nothing indeed more exactly painted in these graphical volumes, than the character of M. Grimm himself;-and the beauty of it is, that as there is nothing either natural or peculiar about it, it may stand for the character of most of the wits and philosophers he frequented. He had more wit, perhaps, and more sound sense and information, than the greater part of the society in which he lived-But the leading traits belong to the whole class, and to all classes indeed, in similar situations, in every part of the world. Whenever there is a very large assemblage of persons who have no other occupation but to amuse themselves, there will infallibly be generated acuteness of intellect, refinement of manners, and good taste in conversation;and, with the same certainty, all profound thought, and all serious affection, will be generally discarded from their society. The multitude of persons and things that force themselves on the attention in such a scene, and the rapidity with which they succeed each other and pass away, prevent any one from making a deep or permanent impression; and the mind, having never been tasked to any course of application, and long habituated to this lively succession and variety of objects, comes at last to require the excitement of perpetual change, and to find a multiplicity of friends as indispensable as a multiplicity of amusements. Thus the characteristics of large and polished society, come almost inevitably to be, wit and heartlessness-acuteness and perpetual derision. The same impatience of uniformity, and passion for variety, which gives so much grace to their conversation, by excluding tediousness and pertinacious wrangling, make them incapable of dwelling for many minutes on the feelings and concerns of any one individual; while he constant pursuit of little gratifications, and the weak dread of all uneasy sensations, render them equally averse from serious sympathy and deep thought. They speedily find to this laudable practice;-and as none of them have so much passion or enthusiasm left, as to be deeply wounded by the shafts of derision, they fall lightly, and without rankling, on the lesser vanities, which supply in them those master springs of human action and feeling. The whole style and tone of this publica tion affords the most striking illustration of these general remarks. From one end of it to the other, it is a display of the most com. plete heartlessness, and the most uninterrupted levity. It chronicles the deaths of half the author's acquaintance-and makes jests upon them all; and is much more serious in discussing the merits of an opera dancer, than in considering the evidence for the being of a God, or the first foundations of morality. Nothing, indeed, can be more just or conclu sive, than the remark that is forced from M. Grimm himself, upon the utter carelessness and instant oblivion, that followed the death of one of the most distinguished, active, and amiable members of his coterie;-"tant il est vrai que ce qui nous appellons la Societć, est ce qu'il y a de plus leger, de plus ingrat, et de plus frivole au monde !" de Holding this opinion very firmly ourselves, it will easily be believed that we are very far from envying the brilliant persons who com posed, or gave the tone to this exquisite society; and while we have a due admiration for the elegant pleasantry, correct taste, and gay acuteness, of which they furnish, perhaps, the only perfect models, we think it more sirable, on the whole, to be the spectators, than the possessors of those accomplishments; and would no more wish to buy them at the price of our sober thinking, and settled affec tions, than we would buy the dexterity of a fiddler, or a ropedancer, at the price of our personal respectability. Even in the days of youth and high spirits, there is no solid enjoy ment in living altogether with people who care nothing about us; and when we begin to grow old and unamuseable, there can be nothing so comfortless as to be surrounded | with those who think of nothing but amusement. The spectacle, however, is gay and beautiful to those who look upon it with a good-natured sympathy, or indulgence; and naturally suggests reflections that may be interesting to the most serious. A judicious extractor, we have no doubt, might accommodate both classes of readers, from the ample magazine that lies before us. M. Grimm, however, reveals woise infirmi ties than this in his great preceptor. There was a young Mademoiselle Raucour, it seems, who, though an actress, enjoyed an unblem ished reputation. Voltaire, who had never seen her, chose one morning to write to the Marechal de Richelieu, by whom she was patronized, that she was a notorious prosti tute, and ready to be taken into keeping by any one who would offer for her. This imputation having been thoughtlessly communicated to the damsel herself, produced no little commotion; and upon Voltaire's being remonstrated with, he immediately retracted the whole story, which it seems was a piece of pure invention; and confessed, that the only thing he had to object to Madlle. Raucour was, that he had understood they had put off the representation of a new play of his, in order to gratify the public with her appearance in comedy;-"and this was enough," says M. Grimm, "to irritate a child of seventynine, against another child of seventeen, who came in the way of his gratification!" The most figuring person in the work, and indeed of the age to which it belongs, was beyond all question Voltaire,-oi whom, and of whose character, it presents us with many very amusing traits. He receives no other name throughout the book, than "The Patriarch" of the Holy Philosophical Church, of which the authors, and the greater part of heir friends, profess to be humble votaries and disciples. The infallibility of its chief, however, seems to have formed no part of the creed of this reformed religion; for, with all his admiration for the wit, and playfulness, and talent of the philosophic pontiff, nothing can exceed the freedoms in which M. Grimm A little after, he tells another story which indulges, both as to his productions, and his is not only very disreputable to the Patriarch, character. All his poetry, he says, after Tan- but affords a striking example of the monstrous cred, is clearly marked with the symptoms evils that arise from religious intolerance, in of approaching dotage and decay; and his a country where the whole population is not views of many important subjects he treats of the same communion. A Mons. de B. inas altogether erroneous, shallow, and con- troduced himself into a protestant family at temptible. He is particularly offended with Montauban, and after some time, publicly him for not adopting the decided atheism of married the only daughter of the house, in the the Systeme de la Nature, and for weakly stop-church of her pastor. He lived several years ping short at a kind of paltry deism. "The with her, and had one daughter-dissipated Patriarch," says he, "still sticks to his Re- her whole property-and at last deserted her, munerateur-Vengeur, without whom he fancies and married another woman at Paris-upon the world would go on very ill. He is reso- the pretence that his first union was not bindlute enough, I confess, for putting down the ing, the ceremony not having been performed god of knaves and bigots, but is not for part- by a Catholic priest. The Parliament ultiing with that of the virtuous and rational. He mately allowed this plea; and farther directreasons upon all this, too, like a baby-a very ed, that the daughter should be taken from its mart baby it must be owned-but a baby mother, and educated in the true faith in a notwithstanding. He would be a little puz- convent. The transaction excited general inzled, I take it, if he were asked what was dignation; and the legality of the sentence, the colour of his god of the virtuous and wise, and especially the last part of it, was very &c. &c. He cannot conceive, he says, how much disputed, both in the profession and out mere motion,undirected by intelligence, should of it;-when Voltaire, to the astonishment of ever have produced such a world as we in- all the world, thought fit to put forth a pamhabit-and we verily believe him. Nobody phlet in its defence! M. Grimm treats the can conceive it--but it is a fact nevertheless; whole matter with his usual coldness and and we see it-which is nearly as good." " | pleasantry;—and as a sort of apology for this We give this merely as a specimen of the disciple's irreverence towards his master; for nothing can be more contemptible than the reasoning of M. Grimm in support of his own desolating opinions. He is more near being night, where he makes himself merry with the Patriarch's ignorance of natural philosophy. Every Achilles however, he adds, has a vulnerable heel-and that of the hero of Ferney is his Physics.* extraordinary proceeding of his chief, very coolly observes, "The truth is, that for some time past, the Patriarch has been suspected, and indeed convicted, of the most abominable cowardice. He defied the old Parliament in his youth with signal courage and intrepidity; and now he cringes to the new one, and even condescends to be its panegyrist, from an absurd dread of being persecuted by it on the very brink of the tomb. "Ah! Seigneur Pat is so unmercifully rated by M. Grinm. We do "Tous ces vastes pays d'Azur et de Lumiere, riarche!" he concludes, in the true Parisian | He promised every night, indeed, to give him Accent, "Horace was much more excusable for a long sitting next day, and always kept his flattering Augustus, who had honoured him, word;-but then, he could no more sit still, though he destroyed the republic, than you than a child of three years old. He dictated are, for justifying, without any intelligible mo- letters all the time to his secretary; and, in tive, a proceeding so utterly detestable, and the mean time, kept blowing peas in the air, upon which, if you had not courage to speak making pirouettes round his chamber, or in as became you, you were not called upon to dulging in other feats of activity, equally fatal say any thing.' It must be a comfort to the to the views of the artist. Poor Phidias was reader to learn, that immediately after this sen- about to return to Paris in despair, without tence, a M. Vanrobais, an old and most re- having made the slightest progress in his de spectable gentleman, was chivalrous enough, sign; when the conversation happening by at the age of seventy, to marry the deserted good luck to turn upon Aaron's golden calf, widow, and to place her in a situation every and Pigalle having said that he did not think way more respectable than that of which she such a thing could possibly be modelled and had been so basely defrauded. cast in less than six months, the Patriarch was so pleased with him, that he submitted to any thing he thought proper all the rest of the day, and the model was completed that very evening. enough to come to his castle at Ferney, with There is a great deal, in the first of these volumes, about the statue that was voted to Voltaire by his disciples in 1770.-Pigalle the sculptor was despatched to Ferney to model him, in spite of the opposition he affects to There are a number of other anecdotes, make in a letter to Madame Necker, in which extremely characteristic of the vivacity, imhe very reasonably observes, that in order to patience, and want of restraint which distinbe modelled, a man ought to have a face-guished this extraordinary person. One of but that age and sickness have so reduced the most amusing is that of the congé which him, that it is not easy to point out where- he gave to the Abbé Coyer, who was kind abouts his had been; that his eyes are sunk into pits three inches deep, and the small remnant of his teeth recently deserted; that his skin is like old parchment wrinkled over dry bones, and his legs and arms like dry spindles ;-in short, "qu'on n'a jamais sculpté un pauvre homme dans cet etat." Phidias Pigalle, however, as he calls him, goes upon his errand, notwithstanding all these discour agements; and finds him, according to M. Grimm, in a state of great vivacity. "He skips up stairs," he assures me, "more nimbly than all his subscribers put together, and is as quick as lightning in running to shut doors, and open windows; but, with all this, he is very anxious to pass for a poor man in the last extremities; and would take it much amiss if he thought that any body had discovered the secret of his health and vigour." Some awkward person, indeed, it appears, has been complimenting him upon the occasion; One of his happiest repartees is said to have for he writes me as follows:-"My dear been made, to an Englishman, who had refriend-though Phidias Pigalle is the most cently been on a visit to the celebrated Halvirtuous of mortals, he calumniates me cruel- ler, in whose praise Voltaire enlarged with ly; I understand he goes about saying that I great warmth, extolling him as a great poet, am quite well, and as sleek as a monk!-a great naturalist, and a man of universal Such is the ungrateful return he makes for the pains I took to force my spirits for his amusement, and to puff up my buccinatory muscles, in order to look well in his eyes!Jean Jacques, to be sure, is far more puffed up than I am; but it is with conceit-from which I am free." In another letter he says, -"When the peasants in my village saw Pigalle laying out some of the instruments of his art, they flocked round us with great glee, and said, Ah! he is going to dissect himhow droll!-so one spectacle you see is just as good for some people as another." attainments. The Englishman answered, that it was very handsome in M. De Voltaire to speak so well of Mr. Haller, inasmuch as he, the said Mr. Haller, was by no means so liberal to M. de Voltaire. "Ah!" said the Patriarch, with an air of philosophic indulgence, "I dare say we are both of us very much mistaken." On another occasion, a certain M. de St. Ange, who valued himself on the graceful turn of his compliments, having come to see him, took his leave with this studied allusion to the diversity of his talents, "My visit to The account which Pigalle himself gives day has only been to Homer-another mom of his mission, is extremely characteristic. ing I shall pay my respects to Sophocles and For the first eight days, he could make noth- Euripides-another to Tacitus-and another ing of his patient, he was so restless and to Lucian." "Ah, Sir!" replied the Patri full of grimaces, starts, and gesticulations.arch, "I am wretchedly old,-could you not One of the most prolific sources of witticisms that is noticed in this collection, is the Patriarch's elevation to the dignity of temporal father of the Capuchins in his district. The cream of the whole, however, may be found in the following letter of his to M. De Richelieu. contrive to see all these gentlemen together?" | spectators. The whole scene, says M. Grimm, M. Mercier, who had the same passion for reminded us of the classic days of Greece and fine speeches, told him one day, "You outdo Rome. But it became more truly touching at every body so much in their own way, that I the moment when its object rose to retire. am sure you will beat Fontenelle even, in Weakened and agitated by the emotions he longevity." "No, no, Sir!" answered the had experienced, his limbs trembled beneath Patriarch, "Fontenelle was a Norman; and, him; and, bending almost to the earth, he you may depend upon it, contrived to trick seemed ready to expire under the weight of Nature out of her rights." years and honours that had been laid upon him. His eyes, filled with tears, still sparkled with a peculiar fire in the midst of his pale and faded countenance. All the beauty and all the rank of France crowded round hin in the lobbies and staircases, and literally bore him in their arms to the door of his carriage. Here the humbler multitude took their turn; and, calling for torches that all might get a sight of him, clustered round his coach, and followed it to the door of his lodgings, with vehement shouts of admiration and triumph. This is the heroic part of the scene;-but M. Grimm takes care also to let us know, that the Patriarch appeared on this occasion in long lace ruffles, and a fine coat of cut velvet, with a grey periwig of a fashion forty years old, which he used to comb every morning with his own hands, and to which nothing at all parallel had been seen for ages-except on the head of Bachaumont the novelist, who was known accordingly among the wits of Paris by the name of "Voltaire's wigblock." "Je voudrais bien, monseigneur, avoir le plaisir de vous donner ma bénédiction avant de mourir. L'expression vous paraîtra un peu forte: elle est pourtant dans la vérité. J'ai l'honneur d'être capucio. Notre général qui est à Rome, vient de m'envoyer mes patentes; mon titre est; Frère Spirituel et Père Temporel des Capucins. Mandez-moi laquelle de vos maîtresses vous voulez retirer du purgatoire: je vous jure sur ma barbe qu'elle n'y sera pas dans vingtquatre heures. Comme je dois me détacher des biens de ce monde, j'ai abandonné à mes parens ce qui m'est du par la succession de feu madame la princesse de Guise, et par M. votre intendant; ils iront à ce sujet prendre vos ordres qu'ils regarderont comme un bienfait. Je vous donne ma bénédiction. Signé VOLTAIRE, Capucin indigne, et qui n'a pas encore eu de bonne fortune de capucin."pp. 54, 55. We have very full details of the last days of this distinguished person. He came to Paris, as is well known, after twenty-seven years' absence, at the age of eighty-four; and the very evening he arrived, he recited himself the whole of his Irene to the players, and passed all the rest of the night in correcting the piece for representation. A few days after, he was seized with a violent vomiting of blood, and instantly called stoutly for a priest, saying, that they should not throw him out on the dunghill. A priest was accordingly brought; and the Patriarch very gravely subscribed a profession of his faith in the Christian religion-of which he was ashamed, and attempted to make a jest, as soon as he recovered. He was received with unexampled honours at the Academy, the whole members of which rose together, and came out to the vestibule to escort him into the hall; while, on the exterior, all the avences, windows, and roofs of houses, by which his carriage had to pass, were crowded with spectators, and resounded with acclamations. But the great scene of his glory was the theatre; in which he no sooner appeared, than the whole audience rose up, and continued for upwards of twenty minutes in thunders of applause and shouts of acclamation that filled the whole house with dust and agitation. When the piece was concluded, the curtain was again drawn up, and discovered the bust of their idol in the middle of the stage, while the favourite actress placed a crown of laurel on its brows, and recited some verses, the words of which could scarcely be distinguished amidst the tumultuous shouts of the This brilliant and protracted career, however, was fast drawing to a close.-Retaining to the last, that untameable spirit of activity and impatience which had characterized all his past life, he assisted at rehearsals and meetings of the Academy, with the zeal and enthusiasm of early youth. At one of the latter, some objections were started to his magnificent project, of giving an improved edition of their Dictionary;—and he resolved to compose a discourse to obviate those objections. To strengthen himself for this task, he swallowed a prodigious quantity of strong coffee, and then continued at work for upwards of twelve hours without intermission. This imprudent effort brought on an inflammation in his bladder; and being told by M. De Richelieu, that he had been much relieved in a similar situation, by taking, at intervals, a few drops of laudanum, he provided himself with a large bottle of that medicine, and with his usual impatience, swallowed the greater part of it in the course of the night. The consequence was, as might naturally have been expected, that he fell into a sort of lethargy, and never recovered the use of his faculties, except for a few minutes at a time, till the hour of his death, which hap pened three days after, on the evening of the 30th of May, 1778. The priest to whom he had made his confession, and another, entered his chamber a short time before he breathed his last. He recognized them with difficulty and assured them of his respects. One of them coming close up to him, he threw his arm round his neck, as if to embrace him. But when M. le Curé, taking advantage of this cordiality, proceeded to urge him to make some sign or acknowledgment of his belief in |