No, alas, this is a *different* whiny letter about how Fritz doesn't love him. There are so many, you know. :P
He showed me a letter from Voltaire which begins:
Caesar appeals to Caesar, Solomon to Solomon. He had refuted the bishop who had attacked the King on a point in his history, on the edict of Nantes. This was of little interest to the King. He complained about the way tractabatur ab ipso [he was treated by him]; complained about this old ambassador, pleaded the cause of his poor unhappy niece who had been frightened to see this letter, quam ipse solus scribere poterat [which only he could have written]: »I am on the lands of France; I would have been lost if this letter had been seen at my house. So treat me with mercy and not strictly. One more word, he said, for whom should we be most interested, who should we love most: a wise king, philosophical, tolerant, generous, or a tyrant who persecutes a bishop? My health is so weak, my eyes are so bad that I am no longer sensitive to anything, not even your heart. Basically you are only a hero for all soup/pottage (?), a genius assassin who has never liked the fool Voltaire. They call me, he said, in Gallia Borussius [Prussian]. I pride myself on this title.
The King replied as a tender father who wants to bring his son back to the right path.
If you have a better translation of this letter, I'm stuck on a couple points. I tried googling "héros pour tout potage" and only got this letter.
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Re: Henri de Catt
Date: 2020-02-04 03:50 am (UTC)He showed me a letter from Voltaire which begins:
Caesar appeals to Caesar, Solomon to Solomon. He had refuted the bishop who had attacked the King on a point in his history, on the edict of Nantes. This was of little interest to the King. He complained about the way tractabatur ab ipso [he was treated by him]; complained about this old ambassador, pleaded the cause of his poor unhappy niece who had been frightened to see this letter, quam ipse solus scribere poterat [which only he could have written]: »I am on the lands of France; I would have been lost if this letter had been seen at my house. So treat me with mercy and not strictly. One more word, he said, for whom should we be most interested, who should we love most: a wise king, philosophical, tolerant, generous, or a tyrant who persecutes a bishop? My health is so weak, my eyes are so bad that I am no longer sensitive to anything, not even your heart. Basically you are only a hero for all soup/pottage (?), a genius assassin who has never liked the fool Voltaire. They call me, he said, in Gallia Borussius [Prussian]. I pride myself on this title.
The King replied as a tender father who wants to bring his son back to the right path.
If you have a better translation of this letter, I'm stuck on a couple points. I tried googling "héros pour tout potage" and only got this letter.