Charm and its effect, even late in life

Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, Madame Helvétius, known as Minette, was reputed to be quite a character, as well as being married to one of the more controversial thinkers of eighteenth-century France. 

Claude-Adrien Helvétius was denounced as an atheist, his book burned by the public executioner. Even his name has a story: he was called Helvétius because he came from a family with the surname Schweitzer, which they presumably regarded as altogether too Germanic. Helvetic means the same as Swiss, so they simply latinised the name, making it sound much grander and less Teutonic. 

Minette. Turned a few heads but not everyone approved

Madame Helvétius was, apparently, quite a looker, and as contemporaries might have put it, no better than she should have been. 

I’ve always had a soft spot for Abigail Adams, wife of the second US President John Adams, and in my humble opinion the more interesting half of that partnership.

To be more truthful, there’s nothing in the least humble about that opinion. I hold it with complete conviction. I have no qualms about putting it out there, right here.

What I can’t deny about Abigail is that she was of somewhat Puritan stock. Rural Massachusetts, don’t you know. Late eighteenth century. They liked things just so.

Abigail met Minette while she was in France with John, during one of the latter’s diplomatic missions on behalf of the emerging American nation. The senior American diplomat was Benjamin Franklin and it was at a dinner he gave that Minette, who was highly fond of him, met Abigail, who didn’t become in the least fond of her. Franklin told Abigail that Minette was a “genuine Frenchwoman, wholly free from affectation or stiffness of behavior”, and:

… one of the best women in the world. For this I must take the Doctor’s word; but I should have set her down for a very bad one, although sixty years of age, and a widow. I own I was highly disgusted, and never wish for an acquaintance with any ladies of this cast. After dinner she threw herself upon a settee, where she showed more than her feet. She had a little lap-dog, who was, next to the Doctor, her favorite.”

Abigail Adams
"I must study politics and war that my sons 
may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”
I'm a fan of hers, but she was none of Minette's

I have to confess that, attached as I am to her, these views of Mrs Adams’ don’t make me think any the less well of Madame Helvétius. 

Apparently many others, and not just Franklin, thought rather highly of her at the time. A generation before Franklin, another thinker had found her fascinating. Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle had been the grand old man of French science, in a life that in the end fell only one month short of a century long.

When he met Madame Helvétius, he was already in his late nineties.

"Ah, madame," he is said to have remarked, "if only I were eighty again.”

Not sure why I’ve devoted a post to that story, except that it’s Saturday afternoon. What time would be more suitable for a gentle anecdote? Especially in a blog devoted to random views.

Tradition: to be cherished, for better or for worse

I’ve had reason to say before that England is a country that values its traditions.

That’s why, every time the old lady from Buckingham Palace gets her eco-friendly, horse-drawn conveyance out and travels down the Mall with all the smart fellows in red coats trotting around her, so many Brits – and not a few tourists – all turn out to wave and cheer and generally enjoy engaging in behaviour exactly as obsequious as people have been displaying for centuries. It makes us all feel good to know that if we’re still dominated by feelings of deferential self-abasement, well, so were our ancestors.

So it’s great to find evidence of the longevity of some of our traditions. For instance, I’ve also previously mentioned Nadine Dorries, Member of Parliament for Mid Bedfordshire who, despite being a Conservative, summed up the leadership of the Tory Party in terms that I couldn’t possibly hope to better.

Nadine Dorries: no flies on her when it comes to her party leaders

She described David Cameron, Prime Minister (pro tem, scheduled expulsion from Downing Street, 2015), and George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer (as we quaintly refer to our Finance Ministers) (possibly facing an even earlier exit), as ‘two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others.’

She made this statement by way of clarification of a previous remark to the effect that they were ‘two posh boys who didn’t know the price of milk.’ Personally, I didn’t feel that needed a lot of clarification, but I suppose the word ‘arrogant’ sheds a little more light on their characters and the comment on the lack of passion provides additional insight too.

Now it’s curious but it seems that Conservative women are good at these things. I was amused to read, in his biography of John Adams (wittily entitled John Adams: a Life), John Ferling’s comments on the views of Abigail Adams from the time when her husband was not yet the second President of the United States, but still the first US ambassador to London. Though they were a ‘revolutionary’ couple, the revolution they favoured was merely intended to secure independence; on social issues, they were as Conservative as any Tory could hope.

In fact, they’d refused to support the Boston Tea Party – which happened more or less on their doorstep – and that would probably make them ideal material for the Tea Party today.

Abigail Adams: no flies on her eitherProbably a lot brighter than the second US President

Abigail was a smart woman, probably with a sharper mind than her husband’s. Apparently, she was ‘affronted by the manner in which the English elite treated their own people, and she expressed particular shock at the squalid living conditions endured by a large percentage of the population. She thought England a hopelessly corrupt country.’

It sounds like we were being run by some pretty nasty posh boys back in 1780s too. It’s a tradition, see, and we value tradition.

That’s why people who are facing foreclosure on their home, if they were ever in a position to buy one at all, or worried about paying the next month’s rent if they weren’t, turn out to celebrate the passage of one of the world’s richest women in her dandy little coach.

And cheer their little hearts out for joy.