Finding Emilie
Finding
Emilie
OTHER FICTION
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The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice
NONFICTION
Until Our Last Breath:
A Holocaust Story of Love and Partisan Resistance
Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Laurel Corona
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition April 2011
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4391-9766-0
ISBN 978-1-4391-9767-7 (ebook)
“Common sense is not so common.”
—Voltaire
For Jim and Lynn, in gratitude for their uncommonness
Content
A Note From The Author
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
The Adventures of Meadowlark and Tom
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Pronunciation Guide and Who’s Who
Gallery Readers Group Guide
O
N SEPTEMBER
3, 1749, shortly before her forty-third birthday, Gabrielle-Emilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, the Marquise du Châtelet, gave birth to a baby girl, Stanislas-Adélaïde. Six days later, already back at her translation of and commentary on Newton’s Principia Mathematica, Emilie du Châtelet complained of a headache, and within hours this charismatic and brilliant woman of letters was dead. This is a work of fiction about the daughter she left behind.
What actually happened to her baby, whom she named Stanislas-Adélaïde? Historical records indicate that she died of unknown causes before her second birthday, a fate shared with more than a quarter of the infants born in that era. She is buried beside her mother at Lunéville, France. We know little about Emilie’s other daughter and first child, Gabrielle-Pauline, who moved to Italy after her marriage at sixteen. Sad but true: even if Emilie’s baby had survived, we likely would know equally little about her.
In short, if Stanislas-Adélaïde had lived, it still would have been necessary to invent her. But what to invent? She was an inconvenient child about whom no one was likely to care much; and with no mother to protest on her behalf, she would almost certainly have gone directly from her wet nurse to a convent, where she would have lived out the rest of her days. I preferred to imagine the life Emilie du Châtelet would have wished for her second daughter—one in which
she had the chance to follow her own dreams and her own mind, and to live a life as full and unique as Emilie’s had been. That story is the one I chose to write.
On another note: the stories of Meadowlark and Tom, which are authored by Lili (as Stanislas-Adélaïde is called in the book) and appear as small excerpts throughout, can be read in full at the end of the novel.
“Judge me for my own merits, or lack of them, but do not look upon me as a mere appendage to this great general or that great scholar, this star that shines at the court of France or that famed author. I am in my own right a whole person, responsible to myself alone for all that I am, all that I say, all that I do. It may be that there are metaphysicians and philosophers whose learning is greater than mine, although I have not met them. Yet, they are but frail humans, too, and have their faults; so, when I add the sum total of my graces, I confess I am inferior to no one.”
Emilie du Châtelet
Lorraine, Palais de Lunéville,
I
September 1749
To Florent-Claude, Marquis du Châtelet-Lomont
Commercy, Lorraine
My Dear Brother-in-Law,
Your last letter caused me such great distress that I have been unable to write until now. The post is leaving soon, and much as it pains me to dispense with the usual civilities, I will get directly to the matter at hand.
Your wife—who, I do not need to remind you, bears your name and that of my late husband—comports herself in a way that is truly beyond endurance. Shortly after my arrival two weeks ago, I laid out for you in great detail the affronts to propriety inflicted upon our most gracious host at the hands of your wife and the people she chooses as friends. I can only suppose that, being Polish, the duke does not understand our ways, although I cannot imagine that before he was deposed as king of even such a backward country, he would have permitted behavior as scandalous as I have witnessed here in Lunéville.
And what, my dear brother-in-law, do you have to say in response? “I have never been able to control my wife, and I find my happiness, and hers, is better served by not trying to do so.” What kind of an answer is that for a retired army general, from one of the most respected and admired families in France? And surely I do not
need to remind you that any true happiness comes in service to god’s will, with which your wife seems entirely unacquainted despite her protestations to the contrary.
The sight of that reprobate Monsieur de Voltaire walking beside her in the garden and holding her parasol—for at the end of her lying-in she needs both hands to support her enormous stomach—has only been made worse in the last two days by the arrival of Monsieur de Saint-Lambert. That he is present at this time is shocking in its audacity, since surely you must be aware of the rumors arising—I shall put this as delicately as I can—from his journey to Cirey to visit your wife at a time consistent with the swollen condition I have described.
Perhaps it will be enough for you to ask for leave to return to Lunéville immediately. Though I am aware that your recent appointment as Grand Maréchal de Logis requires you to be in attendance to the duke at all times, I cannot imagine how such a journey would work a true hardship on the court. Since it is impossible for me to believe that such behavior was permitted while the court was in residence here, I can only assume that your wife has taken advantage of the duke’s absence, and of course yours as well, to behave as if there are no rules at all.
That she has not taken to bed, and continues to work long hours in her study, is ample evidence of her lack of concern for her familial and social obligations. And on that last matter, her toilette, or rather lack of it, is sure in time to cause insolence among the servants. Though she always troubles herself to wear her diamonds, she rarely has her hair arranged suitably, and she often receives visitors with no further preparation than putting an apron over her dressing gown.
I would also like to discuss with you the future of the child, for Madame la Marquise speaks only of science, and seems to have made no plans at all for after the birth. I have no doubt you are sincere in lauding her for the attention she paid your children when
they were young, but at forty-three, she has quite obviously changed. In fact, just last night at supper, she—laughingly, no less—told us that learning, gambling, and greed are the only pleasures left in life for a woman of her advanced years. I am sure she hardly intends—
The man has come for the post and I can say no more.
I remain your devoted sister-in-law,
Philippe-Charlotte, Baronne Lomont
Lorraine, Palais de Lunéville,
I
September 1749
To Florent-Claude, Marquis du Châtelet-Lomont
Commercy, Lorraine
My Dear Monsieur le Marquis,
I write to tell you how splendidly Emilie, your magnificent wife and my dearest friend, is managing these last days before the birth of your child. She is such a wonderful example for me, since, as I can now safely announce, I am expecting my first, which will be born in four months. I so hope the two are both boys, since it would be such a joy to see them playing together on visits to your estate at Cirey. Of course, I would prefer a little girl to dress up like a doll, but since the first order of business is to produce an heir, I will do my best to accede to my husband’s wishes.