Benedetta Craveri - The Last Libertines

The Last Libertines

BENEDETTA CRAVERI

Translated from the Italian by Aaron Kerner

New York Review Books

New York

This is a New York Review Book

published by The New York Review of Books

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Copyright 2016 by Adelphi Edizioni, S.p.A, Milan

Translation copyright 2020 by Aaron Kerner

All rights reserved.

Cover image: Anton Raphael Mengs, Maria Carolina of Augsburg-Lorena, Queen of Naples (detail), ca. 1768; Photographic Archive Prado Museum

Cover design: Katy Homans

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Craveri, Benedetta, 1942 author. | Kerner, Aaron, translator.

Title: The last libertines / Benedetta Craveri ; translated by Aaron Kerner. Other titles: Gli ultimi libertini. English

Description: New York City : New York Review Books, [2020] | Series: New York Review books | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019044362 (print) | LCCN 2019044363 (ebook) | ISBN 9781681373409 ; (hardcover) | ISBN 9781681373416 ; (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: NobilityFranceBiography. | FranceHistoryLouis XVI, 17741793Biography. | FranceHistoryLouis XV, 17151774Biography. Classification: LCC DC137.5.A1 C7313 2020 (print) | LCC DC137.5.A1 (ebook) | DDC 944/.0340922dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044362

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044363

ISBN 978-1-68137-341-6

v1.0

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for Bernard Minoret

T HIS BOOK TELLS THE STORY of seven aristocrats whose youth coincided with the French monarchys final moment of gracea moment when it seemed to the nations elite that a style of life based on privilege and the spirit of caste might acknowledge the widespread demand for change, and in doing so reconcile itself with Enlightenment ideals of justice, tolerance, and citizenship.

It is always a beautiful thing to be twenty years old, Sainte-Beuve wrote of that generation of nobles. But never was it more so than in 1774, when Louis XVIs ascension to the throne seemed to herald the beginning of a new age, one that would allow these princes of youth (as Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes described them) to advance step by step with their era, in perfect harmony with the world around them.

But could matters really have been so simple? Could the liberal nobility (which welcomed the summoning of the Estates General as an opportunity to put in place those institutional reforms that the country sorely needed, and to establish a constitutional monarchy along English lines) truly have lacked a sense of reality? Did they realize only belatedly, after toying with philosophical theories whose consequences they wholly failed to grasp, just how much they had contributed to their own ruin?

This is not the impression one has when retracing the lives and political choices of the Duc de Lauzun, the Comte and Vicomte de Sgur, the Duc de Brissac, the Comte de Narbonne, the Comte de Vaudreuil, and the Chevalier de Boufflers, the protagonists of this book. In making my selection of precisely these seven from among the many brilliant and representative figures of the era, I was driven, of course, by the romantic character of their exploits and amoursbut also by the keenness with which they experienced this crisis in the civilization of the ancien rgime, of which they themselves were the emblem, all while keeping their gaze fixed on the new world that was in the process of being born. Each of them belonged to the ancient feudal nobility and possessed those prerogatives that their class took the most pride in: dignity, courage, refinement of manners, culture, wit, and the art of pleasing. Aware of their advantages and determined to make themselves felt in the world, they responded with all they had to the demands of a profoundly theatrical society, in which one was obliged to know how to hold ones place at center stage. They were also past masters of the art of seduction, and their many successes with the dames du grand monde did not prevent them from practicing libertinism in its broadest sense. This is why I have called them the last libertineseven if each of them eventually met the woman capable of binding him to her for the rest of their days.

They were all tied to one another by long friendships or social acquaintance. They frequented the same milieus, shared the same interests, pursued the same ambitions, and often the same women, as well. Not only do their stories share numerous similarities, shedding light on one another, but they gesture toward the stories of many others. Their behavior and their choices were influenced by family ties, matrimonial alliances, love affairs, and social relations but also by rivalries, resentments, and the desire for revenge. And in these pages the reader will cross paths with Marie-Antoinette, Catherine II of Russia, the Duc de Choiseul and Talleyrand, the Baron de Besenval and the Polignac clan, the Duc dOrlans and Laclos, Chamfort and Mirabeau, Princesse Izabela Czartoryska and Lady Sarah Lennox, the Prince de Ligne (an inexhaustible chronicler of this cosmopolitan elite), the painter lisabeth Vige Le Brun (who captured that eras sweetness of life on canvas), and various other illustrious personalities essential to the understanding of our seven gentlemen. After all, if we know a good deal about them today, it is not only because they poured forth their impressions of themselves and their world in memoirs, letters, and poems but also because they figured powerfully in the diaries and correspondence of their contemporaries.

And yet though they emerged from the same mold, products of that same perfected civilization Their experiences of military service, government administration, and diplomacy, as well as their encounters with the systems prevailing in other lands, had convinced them that the French monarchy needed to change its methods of governance and provide itself with new institutions in order to be able to respond to the political, economic, and social crises then devastating the country. England served as a model: in London, where they mixed with fashionable society and took a keen interest in horse racing, they envied the positions held in public life by a nobility engaged in both politics and business. The American War of Independence proved no less decisive for the Duc de Lauzun and the Comte de Sgur, showing them that a democratic country governed by free citizens was not merely a utopia to be found in books.

With the exception of the Comte de Vaudreuilthe only one who, having staked everything on royal favor, was forced to flee after the fall of the Bastilleall of our protagonists hailed with enthusiasm the summoning of the Estates General, and only during the course of the revolution that followed did their respective paths diverge.

Elected as a deputy to the National Constituent Assembly, the Chevalier de Boufflers would yield to the entreaties of his beloved, an intransigent royalist, and side with the monarchy. A mediocre orator, and fully aware that he was fighting for a lost cause, the Chevalier was far from brilliant when it came to institutional debate, but in his passion for nature and love of beauty he strove to protect confiscated forests and Church properties from speculators and to defend the work of artists and artisans newly deprived of support. Once the assembly had fulfilled its duty, he opted to emigrate, repelled by the violence of political struggle.