Saturday commute xxxvii: Reading with the abbé

  

  

  The courtiers were
  delightful, they
  were not snobs ..
  But they were pro-
  vincials. There was
  freedom of speech
  but no one to ex-
  change it with. In
  short, Lunéville 
  was not Versailles.

     




   Saint-Lambert behaved rather well.
   Having aroused this unwanted pas-
   sion, he did nothing to try and
   check it, he waited for it to die
   down again .. She only asked per-
   mission to go on loving and this
   Saint-Lambert graciously accorded.

Abbé Girard, quite the nicest of priests, who came here, asked for Voltaire Amoureux, so I said to Mme Costa what should I put comme dédicace. She said I think better put nothing or else when he is dead & they look at his books, he will be compromised. "You see you are such a beautiful young [sic] lady, it's not as though you were Mme de Pange." 


Can you wonder I like coming here!

                        

There will be more of

this writer, whose works

gave buoyant delight and

sweetly ribald relief to

the household of one's

childhood. She has been

grievously exploited, as

she gaily anticipated.

Let's meet her anew,

with this observation:

the volume she proposes

to inscribe is the most

necessary study of Vol-

taire which he did not

write, himself; and he

is lucky to get it.

                   But do we need such a thing?

                   Does a vine need a season of

                   nakedness?

Nancy Mitford

Voltaire in Love

Hamish Hamilton, 1957©

Nancy Mitford and

Heywood Hill

John Saumarez-Smith, editor

The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street

  Letters .., 1952-73

  NM to HH, 25 Oct 63

The Estate of Nancy Mitford, 2004©

Frances Lincoln, Ltd, 2004

ii Benjamin A. Huseby photography

   Bolshoi youth