BARON DE GRIMM. (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. 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. THIS is certainly a very entertaining book | upon his sitting down one evening in a seat -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. When the Duke of Saxe-Gotha left Paris, Grimm undertook to send him regularly an 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 despatches of this literary plenipotentiary; and The volumes before us help, in part, to ex-are certainly the most amusing state papers plain 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. Before laying before our readers any part of this miscellaneous 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. that have ever fallen under our obversation. The Baron de Grimm continued to exercise the functions of this philosophical diplomacy, till the gathering storm of the Revolution drove both ministers and philosophers from the territories of the new Republic. He then took refuge of course in the court of his mas ter, where he resided till 1795; when Catharine of Russia, to whose shrine he had formerly made a pilgrimage from Paris, gave him the appointment of her minister at the court of Saxony--which he continued to hold till the end of the reign of the unfortunate 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 Teutonic 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 enthusiThe book embraces a period of about twelve asm for music, and made him known to Diderot, the Baron d'Holbach, and various years only, from 1770 to 1782, with a gap for 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 indeed, chose to quarrel with him for life, half in that of private and confidential cor 17 according to the most approved costume of petits-maitres, in the year 1748, when he made his debut at Paris. are, 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 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 inas 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 despectable 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 cast in less than six months, the Patriarch had been so basely defrauded. 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 the intention of paying a long visit. The second morning, however, the Patriarch interrupted him in the middle of a dull account of his travels, with this perplexing question, "Do you know, M. L'Abbé, in what you differ entirely from Don Quixotte?" The poor Abbé was unable to divine the precise point of distinction; and the philosopher was pleas ed to add, "Why, you know the Don took all the inns on his road for castles,-but it ap pears to me that you take some castles for inns." The Abbé decamped without waiting for a further reckoning. He behaved still worse to a M. de Barthe, whom he invited to come and read a play to him, and afterwards drove out of the house, by the yawns and frightful contortions with which he amused himself, during the whole of the performance. 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 On another occasion, a certain M. de St. his art, they flocked round us with great glee, Ange, who valued himself on the graceful and said, Ah! he is going to dissect him-turn of his compliments, having come to see how 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." him, took his leave with this studied allusion to the diversity of his talents, "My visit toThe account which Pigalle himself gives day has only been to Homer-another mornof 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 Patrifull of grimaces, starts, and gesticulations.arch, "I am wretchedly old,-could you not 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. 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 their 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 indulges, both as to his productions, and his character. All his poetry, he says, after Tancred, is clearly marked with the symptoms of approaching dotage and decay; and his views of many important subjects he treats as altogether erroneous, shallow, and contemptible. He is particularly offended with him for not adopting the decided atheism of the Systeme de la Nature, and for weakly stopping short at a kind of paltry deism. "The Patriarch," says he, "still sticks to his Remunerateur-Ven geur, without whom he fancies the world would go on very ill. He is resolute enough, I confess, for putting down the god of knaves and bigots, but is not for parting with that of the virtuous and rational. He reasons upon all this, too, like a baby-a very smart baby it must be owned-but a baby notwithstanding. He would be a little puzzled, I take it, if he were asked what was the colour of his god of the virtuous and wise, &c. &c. He cannot conceive, he says, how mere motion,undirected by intelligence, should ever have produced such a world as we inhabit and we verily believe him. Nobody can conceive it--but it is a fact nevertheless; and we see it which is nearly as good." 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 right, 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. e cene, says M. Grimm, days of Greece and re truly touching at ect rose to retire. the emotions he embled beneath the earth, he he weight of en laid upon till sparkled of his pale eauty and d hin in lly bore arriage. r turn; get a and M. Grimm, however ties than this in his gre was a young Mademoise who, though an actress, ished reputation. Voltair seen her, chose one morni Marechal de Richelieu, by patronized, that she was a tute, and ready to be taken in any one who would offer for h putation having been thoughtles cated to the damsel herself, produ commotion; and upon Voltaire's monstrated with, he immediately the whole story, which it seems wa of pure invention; and confessed, only thing he had to object to Madlle. A was, that he had understood they had the representation of a new play of his, der to gratify the public with her appear in comedy;-"and this was enough," M. Grimm, "to irritate a child of seven nine, against another child of seventeen, wh came in the way of his gratification!" with ph. М. e A little after, he tells another story which is not only very disreputable to the Patriarch, but affords a striking example of the monstrous evils that arise from religious intolerance, in a country where the whole population is not of the same communion. A Mons. de B. introduced himself into a protestant family at Montauban, and after some time, publicly married the only daughter of the house, in the church of her pastor. He lived several years with her, and had one daughter-dissipated her whole property-and at last deserted her, and married another woman at Paris-upon the pretence that his first union was not binding, the ceremony not having been performed by a Catholic priest. The Parliament ultimately allowed this plea; and farther directed, that the daughter should be taken from its mother, and educated in the true faith in a convent. The transaction excited general indignation; and the legality of the sentence, and especially the last part of it, was very much disputed, both in the profession and out of it ;-when Voltaire, to the astonishment of all the world, thought fit to put forth a pamphlet in its defence! M. Grimm treats the whole matter with his usual coldness and pleasantry;-and as a sort of apology for this extraordinary proceeding of his chief, very coolly observes, "The truth is, that for some time past, the Patriarch has been sus ected, 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 This is only true, however, with regard to nat-is so unmercifully rated by M. Grimm. We do ural history and chemistry; for as to the nobler part of physics, which depends on science, his attainments were equal perhaps to those of any of his age and country, with the exception of D'Alem. bert. Even his astronomy, however, though by no means "mince et raccourtie," had a tendency to confirm him in that paltry Deism, for which he not know many quartains in French poetry more beautiful than the following, which the Patriarch indited impromptu, one fine summer evening "Tous ces vastes pays d'Azur et de Lumiere, Tirés du sein du vide, et formés sans matiere, Arrondis sans compas, et tournans sans pivot, Ont à peine couté la depense d'un mot !'' 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 inas 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 despectable 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. There are a number of other anecdotes, extremely characteristic of the vivacity, impatience, and want of restraint which distin the most amusing is that of the congé which 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 make in a letter to Madame Necker, in which he very reasonably observes, that in order to be modelled, a man ought to have a face-guished this extraordinary person. One of but that age and sickness have so reduced him, that it is not easy to point out where 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 discouragements; 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 ance. 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 toThe account which Pigalle himself gives day has only been to Homer-another mornof 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 Patrifull of grimaces, starts, and gesticulations.arch, "I am wretchedly old,-could you not 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 weigła of Nature out of her rights." years and honours that had been laid upon One of the most prolific sources of witti- him. His eyes, filled with tears, still sparkled cisms that is noticed in this collection, is the with a peculiar fire in the midst of his pale Patriarch's elevation to the dignity of temporal and faded countenance. All the beauty and father of the Capuchins in his district. The all the rank of France crowded round hin in cream of the whole, however, may be found the lobbies and staircases, and literally bore in the following letter of his to M. De Riche-him in their arms to the door of his carriage. lieu. "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 capucin. 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 dû 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 avennes, 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 ou its brows, and recited some verses, the words of which could scarcely be distingushed amidst the tumultuous shouts of the 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." 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 inflam mation 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 M |