WEBVTT - The Mind of Émilie du Châtelet (Part 1) 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:11.080 and Mild from Aaron Mankie Listener discretion advised circa seventeen 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:16.040 forty five, the rising French painter Maryanne Noir received a 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:21.080 commission a portrait of a noblewoman. Was not an unusual assignment, 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:26.520 but her setter was an unusual noble woman. In the 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:32.000 finished portrait, Marianne's subject is seated in an ornate chair 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:36.919 with the perfect posture expected from one of her noble class. 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:41.040 She wears a loose fitting robe of o'l'annglis in a 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:45.120 deep blue, lined with fur on the bodice and lace 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:49.199 on the sleeves. A diamond brooch is pinned to the 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.080 ribbon around her throat, and the woman's cheeks are flushed 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.520 with a deep rouge. Her head is turned slightly to 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:01.440 the right and she smiles slightly at the viewer. At 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.760 first glance, it might be a depiction of any wealthy 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:09.000 noble woman, but the details of the portrait are where 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:13.679 we can see the woman's complexity. The table where she's 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.319 resting her elbow is holding an open book, loose pages 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.600 of a manuscript and an orry, a mechanical model of 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.440 the solar system. In the woman's left hand, she holds 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:32.479 a white carnation, probably signaling its traditional associations with pure 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.120 love and motherhood, or its nature as a hybrid cultivated 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.360 through human science. In the woman's right hand, if you 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.080 look closely, you can see she's holding a compass, the 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:50.880 tool of the mathematician. In eighteenth century French portraiture, the 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:56.400 positioning of the compass symbolized different fields. Holding the points 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:02.640 straight up signified abstractions, whiles represented the measurement of the 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.480 earth and matter. Here, our sitter holds the points of 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:13.200 the compass horizontally, an indication of her ability in both areas. 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.560 The portrait is of a woman named Emilie du Chatelais, 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:24.760 who was not only a mathematician, but also a philosopher, physicist, writer, translator, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.480 and yes, noble woman. The compass, and to be clear, 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.000 I'm talking about a compass that is used to draw 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:36.600 a circle, not a navigational compass. The compass is a 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:42.480 particularly potent symbol in her life. In seventeen forty, a 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:47.079 few short years before she commissioned this portrait, Emily garnered 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:52.200 great recognition within the scientific community after winning a debate 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.480 with the Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, Jean Jacques 0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:00.840 Dortu de Moraine. When the publication of her book featured 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:05.480 a correct rebuttal to the Secretary's argument that forces proportional 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.960 to velocity, she advised him not to draw a metaphorical 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:14.680 epi against her. He responded, I implore you to observe 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.600 that it would not be an epi. A compass suffices 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.560 that is quite enough to check the strikes of a fan. 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:27.480 He meant to dismiss Emily for her femininity, but in 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:32.400 her portrait, portrayed holding both a compass and a flower, 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.920 Emily shows the viewer that she's capable of being a 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:42.960 woman and being right. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:49.040 noble blood. In the early nineteenth century, many years after 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:53.000 Emily de Chatelet's death, a story began to circulate that 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:57.440 explained how she became a woman of science. The story 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.600 comes to a simple conclusion, she was just born that way. 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:06.040 According to a French pamphlet of Famous Women, a servant 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.880 in the home of three year old Emily attempted to 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.160 improvise a toy out of a mathematical compass for the 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.880 girl closing the wooden tool and dressing it to look 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:20.039 like a doll. Instead of accepting the gift as it was, 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:25.320 the little baron studied the figure and undressed it. With 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.919 this strange tool in hand, at just three years old, 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.360 she intuited its purpose and used it to make a 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:38.640 perfect circle. This undoubtedly false anecdote tells us more about 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:44.120 how history constructs identity than it does anything about Emily herself. 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:49.719 As her biographer Judith Zincer points out, this framing presents 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:55.360 Emily as a quote prodigy anomaly, unlike any other female. 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.320 In reality, we know very little about the early life 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.719 of Emily d Chatelas. We can say with certainty that 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.200 she was born on December seventeenth, seventeen o six in 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.120 the Parisian parish of Saint Roche. She was the only 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.800 girl of six children, though two of her brothers would 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:19.040 die very young. At her birth, her father gifted her 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.760 the minor title of barone de Prouli, though it would 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:27.960 automatically go to his eldest son upon his death. Her 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:33.120 father was the breezily named Louis Nicolau de Tonee de Bretois, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.480 a baron of a lesser noble family that had seen 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:39.760 a recent rise in status thanks to the favor of 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:44.320 Louis the fourteenth. Emily's grandfather was one of the king's 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:49.320 most successful courtiers, and while his elder sons followed in 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:55.120 his ambitious footsteps, Emily's father, Louis Nicolas, was perfectly happy 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.520 just riding his dad's coat tails. He was given titles 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:04.039 that came with privileges but no responsibilities, like being one 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.560 of the King's quote first gentlemen of the bedchambers. That 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.960 was a job that entailed watching the king use the 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.839 toilet and keeping him company as he enjoyed his tea 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:20.400 each morning. As one of the king's favorites, Louis Nicholas 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.839 enjoyed certain other privileges, such as being sent away on 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:31.359 diplomatic missions to cover up scandalous affairs. The greatest of 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:36.679 such was his affair with a young Italian financier married 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:41.320 to a Parisian official, in which he ultimately refused to 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:46.240 claim paternity of the child he helped conceive. The King 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:51.400 sent the woman to a convent in disgrace. As an adult, 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:56.960 Emilie defended her illegitimate sister's claim to inheritance against her 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:01.480 cousin's attempts to silence the by then fifty year old woman. 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:07.040 Emilie was successful, and Parisian courts awarded her half sister 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:13.559 a settlement. Eventually into Louis Nicolaus's forties, both the king 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:18.240 and Louis Nicolas's family were fed up with his behavior, 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.400 and it was arranged for him to marry twenty seven 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:26.239 year old Gabrielle Ann Defoulats. While the Riteaus were still 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:31.200 considered new blood, the Foulats were elite members of the court. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:35.960 Gabrielle's mother was a lady in waiting to Queen Anne 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.560 of Austria, and her father was a grand marshal of 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:44.120 the king's army. In a memoir written by one of 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:50.040 Emily's younger cousins, Gabrielle is described as an exceptionally beautiful 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:54.600 woman who was strict and superstitious, but well read in 0:07:54.720 --> 0:08:00.760 both theology and astronomy. Emily's father also had intellectual interests, 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.520 and he hosted a salon in the family home each Thursday. 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:10.360 Louis Nicolas's salon drew big names from Parisian society, including 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:14.800 the memoirrist San Simon, the secretary of the French Academy 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:22.120 of Sciences Fontanelle, and one Voltaire himself. It's possible that 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:27.640 Emily and her future collaborator and lover, Voltaire, might have 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.200 met at one of these salons when Emily was just 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.440 a child, but Voltaire actually dates their first meeting two 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:41.319 years later. Emily's education was most likely typical for girls 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.560 of her status. She would have had a governess who 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.480 taught her basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.120 of course, how to be well mannered and recite her prayers. 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.080 When she was a little older, around seven or eight, 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.880 evidence points to the possibility that she received a pe 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:05.160 period of convent education. One of the major teaching orders 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:09.840 for girls of the time described their responsibility as quote 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:14.640 to teach the little girls Christian piety, the virtues and 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:19.360 good morals, and the works and exercises appropriate to their 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:25.680 sex end quote. In Emily's first completed intellectual work, a 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:31.880 translation and expansion of English philosopher Bernard Mandeville's social commentary 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.120 The Fables of the Bees, Emily dedicates space in her 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:41.920 introduction to critiquing the state of girls education, She began 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.199 writing a bit hyperbolically, quote, let us reflect a bit 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.640 why at no time in the course of so many centuries, 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.920 a good tragedy, a good poem, a respected tale, a 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.720 beautiful painting, a good book of physics has ever come 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.240 from the hand of a woman. Why do these creatures, 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:05.520 whose understanding appears, and all things equal to that of men, 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.079 seem to be stopped by an invisible force on this 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:14.400 side of a barrier. I leave it to naturalists to 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:19.560 find a physical explanation. But until that happens, women will 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:24.040 be entitled to protest against their education. As for me, 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.480 I confess that if I were king, I would wish 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:32.400 to make this scientific experiment. I would reform an abuse 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.440 that cuts out, so to speak, half of humanity. I 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.720 would allow women to share in all the rights of humanity, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.199 and most of all those of the mind. In an 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:49.520 earlier draft, she had explicitly stated quote if I were king, 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:54.720 I would establish secondary schools for women end quote. Emily 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.360 was vigilant about her own education as an adult, making 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:03.120 up for lost years with tutors once she could hire 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:07.520 them on her own. Secondary school for women was at 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.760 this point just a fantasy. By the time Emily was 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:17.960 fifteen or sixteen, potential marriages were already being negotiated. The 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:22.560 lucky man would ultimately be Florent Claude, Marquis du Chetlais. 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.240 In the eyes of society, he was a great match. 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.640 He was older thirty four to her eighteen, a colonel 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.439 in the King's army, and a member of one of 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:38.160 France's oldest noble lines. The Duchetlas were one of the 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.680 few families who could trace their lineage back to the 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:46.720 twelfth century princes who fought in the Crusades. From their 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:51.600 marriage alliance, Emily gained new status and privileges, while her 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.480 husband gained much needed money. As summed up by one 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:01.760 Versailles courtier, Monsieur le Marquis de is a man of 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:06.360 the highest rank, but is not rich. The marriage alliance 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:12.440 was understood as exactly that an alliance. Neither Emily nor 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.160 her husband would have been conditioned to have any romantic 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:20.480 ideas about their union. However, the pair was luckier than many. 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:25.040 They were not in love, no, but they maintained a 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:31.400 respectful and supportive relationship. Florent Claude was not an intellectual 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:36.640 like his wife, but nonetheless he supported her pursuits steadfastly. 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.680 He proudly boasted of her work to the court of 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:45.240 Lorraine and took her book Institutions de Physique to the 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:49.720 printer on her behalf. Quote happily I am sure of 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.720 Monsieur de Chatelais, Emily once wrote to an associate, he 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.120 is the most respectable and most estimable man I know. 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.480 He was also away on on military campaigns more often 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:06.960 than not, which left Emily plenty of time and space 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:14.880 to explore both her intellectual and amorous passions. Emilie understood 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.559 her responsibility as a wife was to carry on her 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:23.920 husband's very prestigious family, noble line, or, as she plainly 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:28.240 called it, quote, the propagation of the species. The couple's 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.240 first child, a daughter, was born almost exactly a year 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.840 after their marriage. Their son and heir, Florent Louis, was 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:41.079 born a year later. Emili gave birth to a third child, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.360 a son, in seventeen thirty three, but he would die 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.880 within his first year. Emili spoke about his death objectively, 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:53.680 calling it quote one of the misfortunes of motherhood, but 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.439 she also expressed her surprise at the extent of her 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.439 distress and anger in the dinner when her set cataloged 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:06.120 amongst her possessions after her own death, twelve place settings 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:12.160 are still accompanied by a single gilded babyspoon. When her 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.560 living son was old enough, Emily took his education upon 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:20.800 herself after realizing his tutors were not up to her standards, 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:26.360 and though she rallied for better girls' schooling, Emily did 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.800 not teach her daughter the same way. Her daughter received 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:35.800 the traditional convent education and married well young. Perhaps if 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.960 Emily had been king in the late seventeen twenties and 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:44.240 early seventeen thirties, when her children were still very young, 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.800 Emily lived the typical life of a young noble woman, 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:55.760 engaging in what she would later call Leschaux's frivou. Such frivolity, 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.160 as she believed, led to quote the neglect of my 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:04.720 mind and understanding. Her daily routine, as established through her letters, 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.880 went something like this. Each morning, her lady's maid would 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.280 wake her by drawing the heavy curtains that lined her bedpost, 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.480 and she'd take her preferred breakfast of coffee with cream 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.560 and a roll, then would begin the long process of dressing, 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:25.680 powdering her hair, and applying rouge and mouche. The rest 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:30.040 of the morning was spent receiving visitors followed by a 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:34.320 trip to Paris's botanical gardens with her good friend, the 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:38.760 Duchesta Saint Pierre, before returning home to dress for the theater. 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:43.520 At six. Nights would be spent at friends homes or 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:48.000 at one of Paris's many special events, like the annual 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:52.160 opera ball, for which Emilie had a custom yellow silk 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:57.080 domino mask. She could not handle alcohol and thus avoided it, 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.760 but she adored food and gambling. It was a world of, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:08.360 in her words, late nights and excesses. What's particularly interesting 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.840 about Emily's critique is that it's not moralizing or religious. 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:18.160 These excesses and frivolities were not universally bad, in her opinion, 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.280 but rather bad for her. We do not know what 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:27.440 eventually sparked her shift in priorities. As she later explained, 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:32.160 it was quote by chance that she encountered people who think, 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.640 and through them came to the key realization that she 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:41.320 too was a thinking creature. It would be years before 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.640 she realized her full potential and published her own work, 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:49.840 but by the early seventeen thirties a seed had been planted. 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.960 In her discourse on Happiness. She would go on to 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.920 explain that because women have been quote condemned to be 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:03.600 excluded from warolitics, and diplomacy, she had to seek glory 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:08.600 through another avenue. The answer for Emily was to seek 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:16.000 glory through science and philosophy. In seventeen thirty three, at 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:20.600 age twenty six, Emili returned to Parisian society after the 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:24.760 birth of her third child. While she still indulged in 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:29.040 her frivolities, her main focus now was on her new 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:34.359 lessons in advanced geometry with the mathematician and future president 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.719 of the Academy of Sciences montpertut While it was not 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:43.800 uncommon for noble women to take on tutors, Emily was 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:49.119 certainly the most enthusiastic of her tutor's clients. She was 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.720 known to wait in her carriage outside of his favorite 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.560 cafe so their lesson could begin as soon as he 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:01.639 was finished. Women were, of course, not allowed inside those spaces. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:07.159 Emily became the subject of Parisian gossip, believed to be 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.800 covering up an affair with her tutor under the guise 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:15.720 of behaving as an eager student. These rumors were likely 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.960 born out of a previous scandal, an affair she did 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:24.920 have with a military officer that allegedly ended with him 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.840 and another woman and Emily with a bottle of pills. 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.840 While that affair was real, the truth of its dramatic 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:39.560 ending is unknown. With her tutor, however, her passion was 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:45.639 solely for mathematics. Speaking of affairs, it's time to bring 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:50.159 out our guest star of the episode. It was in 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.840 the spring of seventeen thirty three that Emili became re 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:59.159 acquainted with Voltaire. While the pair had briefly met in 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.280 adulthood in seventeen twenty nine, their meeting on an April 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.199 night in seventeen thirty three in Saint Pierre's opera Box 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:13.000 marked the true beginning of their relationship. While Voltaire looms 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:18.879 large in our cultural imagination, Emily's attraction to him wasn't 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:23.800 a given. For one, the large looming man was actually 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:29.320 quite small. He stood at approximately five to three compared 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.200 to Emily's five to six, and he was described by 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:37.960 contemporaries as so slight he appeared as if he had consumption. 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.679 Their difference in stature was accompanied by a difference in 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:47.520 status as well. Emily had married into one of France's 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:53.080 oldest noble families, while Voltaire belonged strictly to the bourgeoisie. 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.639 There was also the matter of his tempestuous relationship with 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:02.000 the King's government and religious authority, which often led to 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:07.119 self imposed exiles to avoid arrest. At the same time, 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:14.360 Voltaire was polite, witty, wealthy, famous, and utterly enchanted by Emily. 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.560 He later told a friend quote, there is a lady 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:23.320 in Paris named Emily who, in imagination and in reason 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.760 surpasses the men who like to think they know a 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.280 lot about the one and the other. The two would 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:36.080 maintain years of friendship and intellectual collaboration before sex and 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:40.600 love became involved. We can't know exactly what the two 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.159 spoke about that first night at the opera box, but 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:49.160 over the course of their long conversation, Voltaire offered to 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.720 lend Emily a book. A few weeks after that meeting, 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.040 he sent her a note explaining that he had fallen 0:20:56.160 --> 0:21:00.240 ill following a recent move and regretted that he could 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.679 not bring her the book he promised. He flirtatiously suggested 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.240 she visit him to pick it up, but playfully noted quote, 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.199 I have more desire to see you than you have 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:17.600 to console me. His evaluation of the disparity in their 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:23.439 immediate feelings would prove evident even once their courtship began. 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.439 He once told their friend Abie de Sad, uncle to 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:34.360 that Sad incidentally, that Emily was a quote tyrant, because 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:38.720 one must pay tribute by speaking of metaphysics before speaking 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:43.800 of love. Strangely, no letters have survived between Emily and 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:49.960 Voltaire themselves. Information regarding their intimate friendship is pulled from 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:55.840 their descriptions to third parties. Emily did begin to visit 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:01.040 Voltaire throughout the summer of seventeen thirty three July, accompanied 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:05.400 by her friend Saint Pierre and her lover. One such night, 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:10.440 Voltaire's three guests played cards while he began to compose 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:16.360 his verse a pistol on Calumny defending Emily from Parisian gossip. 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:21.760 The poem begins quote, Listen to me, respectable Emily. You 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:25.760 are beautiful. Thus half of humankind will be your enemy. 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:31.280 You possess a sublime genius. You will be feared. In 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.639 October of the same year, Voltaire enlisted Emily's help working 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:40.160 on his new play about Mexican history. Today in the 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:45.840 National Library of Russia, where Voltaire's personal library resides. Thanks 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:49.600 to Catherine the Great's purchase. After his death, One can 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:53.280 still find Emily's notes in the margins of his copy 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:58.199 of the History of the Conquest of Mexico. At the 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:02.480 same time, Emily made progress in her own studies. A 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:07.040 letter from Voltaire to his friend Sad, written in November 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:11.159 tells us that Emily had recently learned English in only 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:16.520 fifteen days. She had enlisted an Irish military officer as 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:22.400 her tutor, and after five lessons she could read fluently truthfully, 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:26.480 he confessed to his friend Madame du Chatelais Is a prodigy. 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:31.840 She had also likely begun new mathematics lessons with her 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:38.080 tutor's new protege, Claiat. Clairot's style of instruction was more 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:42.040 in line with Emily's thinking, and Emily would later use 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:46.760 his lessons to teach her son. Most importantly, the two 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:51.359 shared a passion and excitement for mathematics that her former 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:55.719 tutor did not. In the seventeen forties, while she worked 0:23:55.720 --> 0:24:01.200 on her translation of Newton's Principia, it was her new tutor, Clairot, 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:05.520 with whom she checked her calculations. By that time, she 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:09.440 had surpassed the skills of her first teacher who had 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:14.600 struggled with Newton's calculus. An incident in the spring of 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:19.239 seventeen thirty four would be a major turning point in 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:24.680 both Emily and Voltaire's relationship and respectively, their personal lives. 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:30.920 In April, Voltaire's letrece Philosophique was published without royal sanction 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:36.640 and therefore illegally in France. By May third, a warrant 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:40.440 was out for his arrest. He knew this was coming. 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:45.159 The essays featured veiled mockery of the church, but he 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:50.600 went forward with publication despite warnings from friends. Voltaire began 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:54.680 to move from place to place and planned to go 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:59.880 into exile if necessary, comparing himself to Calvin and Ovid. 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:05.600 A local officer presented in order for Voltaire's arrest. Personally, 0:25:05.760 --> 0:25:10.760 to Emily, she wrote with distress to sad, envisioning quote 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:14.200 my best friend with horrible health in prison, where he 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:18.080 will surely die of sadness if illness doesn't kill him. 0:25:18.320 --> 0:25:21.919 She began to actively defend Voltaire to the government and 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:26.760 found an ally in her husband, The marquis known Chill Guy, 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:31.560 was fond of Voltaire despite his relationship with his wife, 0:25:32.000 --> 0:25:35.879 and he would continue to protect the trouble prone philosopher 0:25:36.000 --> 0:25:40.920 for many years to come. Authorities ultimately awarded the Marquis 0:25:40.960 --> 0:25:46.359 and Marquise du Chatelas the quote official authorization to sequester 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:53.760 Voltaire basically supervised house arrest. Exiled from Paris, Voltaire moved 0:25:53.920 --> 0:25:58.119 to the du Chatelas estate in Champagne. Writing to his 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:04.199 closest correspondent, Voltaire praised quote, Emily renders good offices to 0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:07.439 her friends with the same vivacity that she learned the 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:11.800 languages of mathematics, and when she has rendered all the 0:26:11.880 --> 0:26:17.440 services imaginable, she believes she has done nothing. Resuming her 0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:20.800 own life in Paris, Emily found herself at a loss, 0:26:21.280 --> 0:26:24.960 as she explained Tosad in July, quote, I am not 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:28.480 accustomed to living without him, nor to the thought of 0:26:28.560 --> 0:26:33.440 losing him without recourse. That would poison all the sweetness 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:39.000 of my life. She faced two more losses in quick succession. 0:26:39.680 --> 0:26:43.680 First the death of her infant son, whom he already mentioned, 0:26:44.359 --> 0:26:47.959 and then her tutor went to Basle with his mentor 0:26:48.040 --> 0:26:54.000 without warning, and her lessons ceased. Paris suddenly lost its luster, 0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:59.359 and she made the decision to join Voltaire in Champagne. 0:27:00.880 --> 0:27:05.400 By the fall, the pair fell into a routine of cohabitation. 0:27:06.280 --> 0:27:10.760 They both referred to the estate as my hermitage and 0:27:10.960 --> 0:27:15.880 considered it a place devoted to intellect. For the next year, 0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:20.720 Emily spent her time between Paris and Champagne, between a 0:27:20.760 --> 0:27:25.919 life of society and a life of study. Their romantic 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:31.200 relationship must have begun during this period, because in May 0:27:31.400 --> 0:27:35.800 of seventeen thirty five, Emily refers to Voltaire as more 0:27:35.840 --> 0:27:39.959 than a friend for the first time. Reminiscing on her 0:27:40.000 --> 0:27:44.760 time in Champagne, she reflected that she had tasted the 0:27:44.800 --> 0:27:48.879 happiness of living in the country with my lover. After 0:27:49.000 --> 0:27:52.080 much internal debate, she came to the decision that she 0:27:52.119 --> 0:27:56.680 would leave Paris for good, becoming a full time resident 0:27:56.920 --> 0:28:02.359 at the hermitage. Friends advice against such a drastic move 0:28:02.840 --> 0:28:06.560 and didn't believe she was capable of abandoning her beloved 0:28:06.640 --> 0:28:12.920 Parisian lifestyle. Her response was decisive, quote, I love Voltaire 0:28:13.040 --> 0:28:16.199 enough to sacrifice all that I could find pleasurable and 0:28:16.320 --> 0:28:20.000 agreeable in Paris, for the happiness of living with him 0:28:20.040 --> 0:28:23.560 without dangers, and the pleasure of tearing him away in 0:28:23.640 --> 0:28:28.320 spite of himself from his imprudences and his destiny. In 0:28:28.400 --> 0:28:32.920 the summer of seventeen thirty five, her servants packed her bags. 0:28:35.359 --> 0:28:38.600 That's the end of part one of our story about 0:28:38.680 --> 0:28:42.480 Emily du Cheplay, but keep listening after a brief sponsor 0:28:42.560 --> 0:28:48.080 break to hear about a particularly interesting conversation that shaped 0:28:48.160 --> 0:28:59.920 Emily's life. Emily's decision to leave Paris for the country 0:29:00.440 --> 0:29:04.800 was supported by a figure from her childhood, Fontanelle, her 0:29:04.840 --> 0:29:09.520 father's associate and former secretary of the Academy of Sciences. 0:29:10.120 --> 0:29:14.160 On June fifteenth, Emilie went for a two hour walk 0:29:14.160 --> 0:29:17.400 in the Tuillery Garden with the then seventy eight year 0:29:17.400 --> 0:29:21.800 old writer. Bringing up her dilemma, he responded in a 0:29:21.800 --> 0:29:27.120 way she would understand as a fellow mathematician. He said, quote, 0:29:27.520 --> 0:29:31.880 it is only a question of calculating, and wisdom always 0:29:31.960 --> 0:29:35.800 holds the counters in her hand. It was that very 0:29:35.920 --> 0:29:39.479 night she made her decision to leave. When she wrote 0:29:39.520 --> 0:29:43.520 her discourse on Happiness in the late seventeen forties, she 0:29:43.560 --> 0:29:57.840 would repeat that advice word for word. Noble Blood is 0:29:57.880 --> 0:30:02.280 a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. 0:30:02.840 --> 0:30:06.640 Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, writers for 0:30:06.680 --> 0:30:11.720 Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Paul Jaffey, Natasha Laski, 0:30:11.840 --> 0:30:15.840 and me Dana Schwartz. The show is edited and produced 0:30:15.880 --> 0:30:20.720 by Jesse Funk and Nomes Griffin, with supervising producer rima 0:30:20.880 --> 0:30:25.240 Il Kaali and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and 0:30:25.320 --> 0:30:30.840 Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:30:31.120 --> 0:30:34.560 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.