bien que sa tête est pour eux une maison de force, et non pas le lieu de leur naissance.” * That Madame du Châtelet was a woman of extraordinary talent, and that her progress in abstract sciences was uncommon, and even unique at that time, at least among her own sex, is beyond a doubt; but her learned treatises on Newton, and the nature of fire, are now utterly forgotten. We have since had a Mrs. Marcet; and we have read of Gaetana Agnesi, who was professor of mathematics in the University of Padua; two women who, uniting to the rarest philosophical acquirements, gentleness and virtue, have. needed no poet to immortalize them. Of the numerous poems which Voltaire addressed to Madame du Châtelet the Epistle beginning V. Correspondence de Madame de Deffand. In another letter from Sceaux, Madame de Staël adds the following clever, satirical, -but most characteristic picture : "En tout cas on vous garde un bon appartement: c'est celui dont Madame du Châtelet, après une revue exacte de toute la maison, s'était emparée. Il y aura un peu moins de meubles qu'elle n'y en avait mis; car elle avait dévasté tous ceux par où elle avait passé pour garnir celui-là. On y a trouvé six ou sept tables; il lui en faut de toutes les grandeurs; d'immenses pour étaler ses papiers, de solides pour soutenir son nécessaire, de plus légères pour ses pompons, pour ses bijoux; et cette belle ordonnance ne l'a pas garantie d'un accident pareil à celui qui arrive à Phillippe II. quand, après avoir passé la nuit à écrire, on répandit une bouteille d'encre sur ses dépêches. La dame ne s'est pas piquée d'imiter la modération de ce prince; aussi n'avait-il écrit que sur des affaires d'état; et ce qu'on lui a barbouillé, c'était de l'algèbre, bien plus difficile à remettre au net." Tu m'appelles à toi, vaste et puissant génie, is a chef-d'œuvre, and contains some of the finest lines he ever wrote. The Epistle to her on calumny, written to console her for the abuse and ridicule which her abstractions and indiscretions had provoked, begins with these beautiful lines— Écoutez-moi, respectable Emilie: Vous êtes belle; ainsi donc la moitié With that famous ring, from which he had afterwards the mortification to discover that his own portrait had been banished to make room for that of Saint Lambert, he sent her this elegant quatrain. Barier grava ces traits distinés pour vos yeux; The heroine of the famous Epistle, known as "Les TU et les vous,” (Madame de Gouverné,) was one of Voltaire's earliest loves; and he was passionately attached to her. They were separated in the world:-she went through the usual routine of a French woman's existence,-I mean, of a French woman l'ancien régime. Quelques plaisirs dans la jeunesse, She was first dissipated; then an esprit fort; then très dévote. In obedience to her confessor, she discarded, one after the other, her rouge, her ribbons, and the presents and billets-doux of her lovers; but no remonstrances could induce her to give up Voltaire's picture. When he returned from exile in 1778, he went to pay a visit to his old love; they had not met for fifty years, and they now gazed on each other in silent dismay. He looked, I suppose, like the dried mummy of an ape: she, like a withered sorcière. The same evening she sent him back his portrait, which she had hitherto refused to part with. Nothing remained to shed illusion over the past; she had beheld, even before the last terrible proof What dust we doat on, when 'tis man we love. And Voltaire, on his side, was not less dismayed by his visit. On returning from her, he exclaimed, with a shrug of mingled disgust and horror, "Ah, mes amis ! je viens de passer à l'autre bord du Cocyte!" It was not thus that Cowper felt for his Mary, when "her auburn locks were changed to gray:" but it is almost an insult to the memory of true tenderness to mention them both in the same page. To enumerate other women who have been celebrated by Voltaire, would be to give a list of all the beautiful and distinguished women of France for half a century; from the Duchesse de Riche- . lieu and Madame de Luxembourg, down to Camargo the dancer, and Clairon and le Couvreur the actresses: but I can find no name of any poetical fame or interest among them: nor can I conceive any thing more revolting than the history of French society and manners during the Regency and the whole of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth. CHAPTER XXXIX. FRENCH POETRY, CONTINUED. MADAME D'HOUDETOT. SAINT LAMBERT, who seemed destined to rival greater men than himself, after carrying off Madame du Châtelet from Voltaire, became the favored lover of the Comtesse d'Houdetot, Rousseau's Sophie; she for whom the philosopher first felt love, “dans toute son énergie, toutes ses fureurs,”—but in vain. Saint Lambert is allowed to be an elegant poet: his Saisons were once as popular in France, as Thomson's Seasons are here; but they have not retained their popularity. The French poem, though in many parts imitated from the English, is as unlike it as possible: correct, polished, elegant, full of beautiful lines,—of what the French call de beaux vers, and yet excessively dull. It is equally impossible to find fault with it in parts, or endure it as a whole. Une petite pointe de verve would have rendered it delightful; but the total want of enthusiasm in the writer freezes the reader. As Madame du Deffand said, in humorous mockery of his monotonous harmony, "Sans les oiseaux, les ruisseaux, les hameaux, les ormeaux, et leur rameaux, il aurait bien peu de choses à dire !” Madame d'Houdetot was the Doris to whom the Seasons are dedicated and the opening passage addressed to her, is extremely admired by French critics. Et toi, qui m'as choisi pour embellir ma vie, Doux repos de mon cœur, aimable et tendre amie! Aux arts dont tu jouis, au monde où tu sais plaire; Sophie de la Briche, afterwards Madame d'Hou |