Clockwise Cat Strikes Back

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND by Fred Russell
In May 1726 Voltaire sailed up the Thames, London-bound. He was thirty-two at
the time, a scrawny Frenchman with a big mouth. Everyone was after his ass. Back in
France he'd had a run-in with someone called the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot, got
himself arrested, and was graciously allowed to leave the country in lieu of becoming a
full-time resident of the Bastille. It was a fine day and it made him fall in love with
England. The King was out on his barge, a thousand little boats were in his wake, and
some music was being played. Was it Haendel's "Water Music"? Let's say it was so that
you can understand what Voltaire felt that day. Later he saw some fat merchants in town
and thought he was in paradise.
London at the time was in actual fact the cesspool of the Western World, a great
Broth of Slops and Excrement to which the majority of its unfortunate Citizens had been
consigned by the titled Nonentities who callously ruled their lives. Few civilized nations
have displayed such cruelty toward their own kind as the British. But that's another story.
Voltaire retired to Wandsworth for a few months to brush up on his English so that he
could chat with Pope, who usually talked in couplets. He also met Congreve, who he
thought was the second coming of Molière. George II sent him some cash and he
dedicated the Henriade to the Queen.
At Wandsworth he walked around with a big hard-on most of the time, coming
down to the kitchen every morning to feast his eyes on the merry wenches dishing out the
gooseberry tarts. Fawkener, his host, liked to pinch their lovely behinds. The English
were still a robust people. Samuel Johnson had not yet begun to destroy their language so
most of them still sounded like Shakespeare, or at least like Samuel Pepys. Voltaire
sounded like Voltaire. He tended to philosophize about everything. Were he alive today
he would be hosting a talk show like Reich-Ranicki or Bernard Pivot. But then he
wouldn't have written the ten thousand letters and all those books.
Once he got the hang of it, Voltaire started writing letters in English too. Whether
the French recipients could understand them is another matter. To Thierriot he wrote:
"Write me some lines in English to show your improvement in your learning." To the
Queen of England he signed off: "Most humble, most dutiful, most obliged servant," but
left out the "etc." Voltaire was a lover of non-French royalty. That would get him into a
lot of trouble in later life when he became enamored of the crazy Germans. But that's
another story too.