The Coronation of Voltaire at the Comédie-Française

Saint-Aubin’s was, above all, indefatigably curious.18 An erudite and voracious reader, he was also an amateur poet19 and, quite simply, someone fascinated by everything around him – whether a fire at the Hôtel Dieu (which he rose in the middle of the night to sketch),20 an open class at the Collège Royal de Pharmacie,21 or the distribution of free wine during celebrations for the birth of the royal couple’s first child.22 This relentless curiosity made Saint-Aubin the most consistent visual chronicler of eighteenth-century Paris,23 so much so that his work has sometimes been valued more for its documentary interest than for its technical mastery, stylistic freedom, and formal innovation.

Among the many facets of Parisian public life, none (aside, perhaps, from exhibitions and auctions) captivated him more than performance: the opera, the theatre, and the fairground spectacle. If Saint-Aubin the man was drawn to them out of personal passion (especially for opera), Saint-Aubin the artist was likely fascinated by their unique fusion of the real and the imaginary, which was central to his own practice.24

With his instinct to record even the most fleeting moments of Parisian life, his deep love of theatre, and his lifelong admiration for Voltaire, Saint-Aubin could hardly have missed Voltaire’s coronation by the Comédie-Française.

On 30 March 1778, following a session held in his honour at the Académie Française, Voltaire travelled by carriage to the Tuileries Palace – the temporary home of the Comédie-Française – to attend the sixth performance of his final tragedy Irène. His arrival drew immense crowds, and inside the theatre he was greeted with thunderous applause. Once seated in his box, the actor Jean-Baptiste Britard, known as Brizard (1721–1791), entered holding a laurel wreath and placed it upon Voltaire’s head. Moved, the writer reportedly exclaimed: “Ah! God, do you want to kill me?”

After the play, the curtain rose again to reveal the entire troupe assembled around a plaster bust of Voltaire by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (1704–1778)]), which they crowned with garlands and laurel wreaths amid renewed acclamations. Madame Vestris (1743–1804) then stepped forward to recite verses by the Marquis de Saint-Marc (1728–17818), proclaiming Voltaire’s eternal glory in the eyes of France and of history. This double coronation (of the living writer and of his likeness) marked the culmination of Voltaire’s triumphant return to the capital after a 28-year absence.25

Two weeks later, Saint-Aubin produced three drawings inspired by the event: a preparatory sketch in black chalk,26 a colour watercolour dated 12 April 1778,27 and a more refined black-and-white mixed-media drawing dated 15 April (VI68). Of the three,28 the latter is the most fully realised and can be regarded as the definitive version.

In this final drawing, as in the preparatory works, the two coronations unfold simultaneously: while Voltaire’s bust is being carried onto the stage to be crowned by the company, Brizard and the Marquise de Villette – Voltaire’s “fille adoptive” whom he affectionately nicknamed “Belle et Bonne” – are placing a wreath upon Voltaire’s head in his box. To the right of the Marquise stands her husband, the Marquis de Villette, whose marriage to her had been arranged by Voltaire himself. Seated at the far left of the box is Mme Denis – Voltaire’s niece and erstwhile lover. We observe the scene from a detached, elevated vantage point that allows a simultaneous view of the boxes, the stage, and the parterre.

In the parterre, the audience erupts in applause; one spectator points toward a playbill bearing the title of the performance, Irène, while another tosses his hat into the air.

All eyes are fixed on Voltaire, except for a heavily decorated gentleman in the box below, who bows, clearly assuming the applause is meant for him. As Kim de Beaumont has identified, this figure is the Duc de Richelieu (1696–1788), known to have advised on the casting of Irène.29

The names of all Voltaire’s plays, including Irène, adorn the two Corinthian columns of the stage. To their right, a small putto with a trumpet lifts the curtain to reveal three men carrying Voltaire’s bust and pedestal onto the stage.

The drawing is enclosed within a green frame painted to imitate marble. Above it, faintly inscribed verses read:

In a cartouche below, the Villette family coat of arms appears with a dedication to the Marquise de Villette (“À Belle et Bonne”), flanked by verses from Voltaire’s Les Adieux du vieillard. Dedicated to the Marquis de Villette, who hosted Voltaire’s 1778 stay in Paris, this poem is a tender farewell to the city and its people, whom the author found profoundly changed after his long exile. First published on 9 May 1778 in the Journal de Paris,31 these verses were probably a slightly later addition to the drawing, dated 15 April.

The verses, the dedication, the fact that the preparatory black-chalk drawing is in reverse, and the predominantly black-and-white palette of the final piece all suggest that Saint-Aubin intended the drawing for reproduction in print. Yet no engraving was ever produced. The reasons remain unclear: perhaps Saint-Aubin was discouraged by the announcement, on 6 May,32 of an engraving on the same subject by Charles-Étienne Gaucher (1740–1804) and Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune (1741–1814) (VI160), perhaps after Voltaire’s death on 30 May, the image no longer seemed appropriate, or perhaps practical obstacles intervened that are now lost to history.

Whatever the cause, it is regrettable that Saint-Aubin never reproduced this work, for it represents a rare moment when his personal passions – for Voltaire, for the theatre, and for observation – perfectly aligned with the spirit of the time. While its dense detail and lack of a single focal point might have limited its popular appeal, such an engraving would undoubtedly have found a dedicated audience.

Allegory on the Death of Voltaire

Although Saint-Aubin abandoned his attempts to enter the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture early in his career, he – and this is essential to understanding his art – never abandoned its core values. As Colin Bailey aptly noted, though a draughtsman in practice, Saint-Aubin remained a history painter at heart.33 Like any artist aspiring to that status, he was exceptionally erudite, widely read, and knowledgeable in the art of the past.34 What is perhaps more surprising is that even his most imaginative and non-conformist works are imbued with the symbolism associated with the grand genre.

Saint-Aubin loved allegory.35 While others reserved it for official, state-sponsored commissions, regarding it largely as a formality, Saint-Aubin used allegory even in his most private works, those never meant to be sold, reproduced, or even shown. Still more fascinating is his approach. His friend Michel-Jean Sedaine (1719–1797) once advised him, in verse, to abandon the “heroes of Homer” for “tender and gallant” pastoral subjects. 36 For Saint-Aubin, however, this was no such dichotomy. In his work, “tender and gallant” Rococo motifs coexist harmoniously with the elevated, intellectual language of academic history painting. He appropriated that worn, austere visual vocabulary and bent it entirely to his own inventive will. What elsewhere might appear a contradiction37 – allegory and imagination – blended seamlessly in his work.

A striking example is Allegory on the Death of Voltaire(VI69), a 20 x 13 cm mixed-media drawing now at the Rijksmuseum. It depicts a grieving nude nymph pouring water into a large conch shell, with a swan – the traditional emblem of poetry – at her feet. In the upper right, Death veils Voltaire, who continues to write within his tomb. To the right, beneath the titles of Voltaire’s most famous works, La Pucelle and La Henriade, lies an overturned hourglass marking the end of his life. To the left appears once again the Villette family coat of arms, beside a woman inscribing the phrase: “Son esprit est partout mais son cœur n’est qu’icy” (“His spirit is everywhere, but his heart is only here”) – a variation on the epitaph placed by the Marquis de Villette on the cenotaph for Voltaire’s heart at Ferney.38

This version of the inscription appeared in the contemporary press, where Saint-Aubin probably encountered it:

Saint-Aubin’s artistic impulse here seems to have been to imagine what a mausoleum for Voltaire’s heart might have looked like. Indeed, he depicts a tomb bearing the Villette arms, while the woman inscribing the epitaph may be interpreted as Belle et Bonne herself.

Saint-Aubin may even have known that the proposed mausoleum was to be designed by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828).40 It seems more than a coincidence that the central figure – rising above the scene like Watteau’s Gilles – is derived from Saint-Aubin’s sketch of Houdon’s now-lost plaster, Naïade.41

This was not Saint-Aubin’s first attempt to envision a monument to Voltaire. In 1770, when word spread that the writer’s circle was planning a monument in his honour, Saint-Aubin responded with his own imagined design, depicting Voltaire alongside his late companion and intellectual collaborator, Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749).42

Of course, Allegory on the Death of Voltaireshould not be regarded as a design project in any formal sense. Its very appearance makes clear that it was never intended for sale or reproduction. As in Saint-Aubin’s sketchbooks43 – where unrelated subjects often coalesce by chance into harmonious compositions – here, diverse symbols and inscriptions44 overlap without coherent spatial logic. The drawing probably emerged from a spontaneous meditation on Voltaire’s death, combining textual and visual motifs into a single associative whole.

Voltaire’s death caused a public sensation, but Saint-Aubin appears to have been personally affected by the news. On the fly leaf of his copy of the seventh volume of Jean-Aimar Piganiol de La Force’s Description de Paris he inscribed the following quatrain:

Allegory on the Death of Voltairethus stands as a personal tribute to a figure Saint-Aubin profoundly admired. In meditating on Voltaire’s death, he may also have been contemplating his own – Saint-Aubin would die less than two years later.

Le Rêve

Saint-Aubin’s third and last portrait of Voltaire (VI70) is one of his very few known paintings.46 It depicts the writer at work on La Pucelle d’Orléans.

Voltaire appears on the left of the composition, seated at his desk in a contemplative pose, his head turned upward. His face is illuminated by the radiant light of a torch held by a laurel-crowned putto with a trumpet – an allegory of Poetry. Voltaire’s gaze is directed toward a series of medallions presented to him by another putto, this one with a quiver, symbolising Love. Three of the medallions are clearly identifiable: Joan of Arc on the left, Charles VII in the centre, and Agnès Sorel on the right.

On the desk, amid scattered books and scrolls, sits a small red-haired faun holding a snake in his right hand – the Genius of Satire. He mischievously looks out at the viewer while offering Voltaire an inkwell.47 Nearby lie a lyre and a theatrical mask, symbols Voltaire’s poetic and dramatic genius.

The disorder extends beneath the desk, where a copy of Jean Chapelain’s La Pucelle, ou la France délivrée(1656) lies symbolically beneath Voltaire’s foot. To the right, piled atop other volumes, are numerous small bags of money48 – perhaps an allusion to the financial profit La Pucelle d’Orléans had earned its author.

The painting’s allegorical message is clear: Voltaire’s imaginative genius, nourished by poetry, satire, and eroticism, has redefined the story of Joan of Arc, eclipsing Chapelain’s ponderous epic on the same subject.

In a manner characteristic of Saint-Aubin’s disregard for conventional supports and the unrestrained nature of his creative practice, the composition is painted directly over a print mounted on canvas.49 The print beneath is an early state of an engraving by Pierre Nicolas Ransonnette (1745–1810) (VI71) after Saint-Aubin’s own drawing.50 That drawing (which, as we may imagine, showed the composition in reverse) is now lost, but Saint-Aubin’s first conception of the scene survives in an ink drawing today in the collection of Jean Bonna.51

This ink drawing served as a frontispiece for an extraordinary suite of illustrations to La Pucelle that Gabriel de Saint-Aubin created together with his brothers Charles-Germain and Augustin52 on a 1757 manuscript copy of Voltaire’s poem.53 Little is known about this object. Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey has suggested that it was produced between 1757 (when Charles-Germain transcribed Voltaire’s text) and 1760 (the date appearing on Augustin’s illustration).54 She further proposed that the series was originally intended for print, but that the Saint-Aubins may have abandoned the project after the official 1762 edition appeared with illustrations by Hubert-François Gravelot (1699–1773). I would, however, note, without implying any conclusions, the similarities between Saint-Aubin’s composition (VI69) and the frontispiece to the 1773 edition of La Pucelle (VI438).

In this early version, the composition is outlined in loose, rapid strokes, but all the principal elements are already in place. A notable difference is that next to Chapelain’s La Pucelle, on the floor, lie volumes of Voltaire’s own works – La Henriade, L’Histoire de Charles XII and Zaïre – along with a roll of papers titled “Madame du Châtelet”. Opposite Voltaire stands an empty chair inscribed with the initials “D.C.”, which scholars have interpreted as those of Émilie du Châtelet.55 These two details likely allude to the fact that Voltaire composed much of La Pucelle at Du Châtelet’s residence at Cirey, or perhaps to the rumours that she collaborated with him on the poem.56

It is fascinating that, two decades after the Saint-Aubins conceived (and abandoned) this project, the frontispiece was revived as an independent composition. Perhaps, spurred by the excitement surrounding Voltaire’s return to Paris, Ransonnette decided to produce an engraving of the writer and approached Saint-Aubin for a suitable design, or perhaps Saint-Aubin was the one to approach Ransonnette. As for the painting, it is likely that Saint-Aubin received an early proof of Ransonnette’s engraving for review and, in a typically spontaneous gesture, decided to “correct” it – probably for his own amusement rather than with the intention of sharing it with the engraver or anyone else.

A comparison of Saint-Aubin’s painting (VI70) with Ransonnette’s resulting print (VI71), which was not published until 1782,57 two years after Saint-Aubin’s death, helps explain what may have prompted this “correction”. Though it faithfully reproduces every detail of the original composition, the print entirely misses its spirit. The flowing anarchy characteristic of Saint-Aubin’s drawing is subdued by the rigidity of line; even the light and the smoke are reduced to neatly outlined forms.

In contrast, Saint-Aubin’s painted version is all atmosphere: everything is bathed in light and haze, the contours deliberately softened.58 Two new details are introduced: a mask (unclear whether tragic or comic) beside the lyre, and a coffee service of cup, saucer, and pot placed on either side of the Genius of Satire. The Genius himself, who in the print looks toward Voltaire, now turns outward, meeting the viewer’s gaze and breaking the fourth wall. The painting, we may imagine, restores to the composition the sense of freedom, spontaneity, and dreamlike vitality that the engraving had drained away.

Although permeated with Rococo motifs – as in the boucheresque putti59 – Saint-Aubin’s Le Rêve, like many of his works, anticipates Romanticism in striking ways, both stylistically and thematically. The thick impasto, oversaturated palette, and dramatic chiaroscuro recall William Blake (1757–1827) and the Ancients rather than any contemporary French painting. The imaginary, the supernatural and the real converge throughout Saint-Aubin’s oeuvre, but here he turns to perhaps the most quintessentially Romantic theme: the dream – and not just any dream, but the dream of a poet.

More than an allegorical homage to Voltaire’s La Pucelle, this intimate scene is a meditation on artistic imagination and, in that sense, may be read as a form of self-portrait. The disorder of the room – with its volumes, scrolls and papers scattered across the desk and floor – mirrors the chaos of Saint-Aubin’s own studio.60 The artist was notoriously untidy; so much so that the notary sent to inventory his possessions after his death reportedly refused to enter his appartement until it had been cleaned.61 Himself an amateur poet, Saint-Aubin must have felt an affinity with Voltaire’s vocation and surely recognised in him a kindred spirit: joyful, imaginative, versatile and resistant to convention.

Conclusion

Because they were never intended for the public eye (as in the case of Allegory on the Death of Voltaire) or because of their utterly singular nature (as in The Coronation and Le Rêve), Saint-Aubin’s portraits of Voltaire have not been influential and remain complete outliers within his iconography. Yet their value lies precisely in this – in their artistic individuality and in their status as rare, intimate visual tributes.