Wonderful, thank you so much for reading this book and telling us all about it. It's been such an unexpected and welcome gift from the universe to have a royal reader just when my reading ability is seriously crippled.
I also love how this fandom is about historiography almost as much as history. It really makes me feel like you two are my people. If we were just recounting what we read without analyzing it, it would be interesting, but I'd feel less at home here in the salon.
On to the book!
He also is indeed opinionated, and not in the sense of Bodanis' romantisizing...No, Orieux' being opinionated translates, for example, into his unabashedly declaring Voltaire's stage plays (a considerable part of his ouevre) as boring, the products of the dead end phase of French classical drama which deserved to die and be revolutionized not long after Voltaire's death.
I would have to check (and since it was a library book, would be non-trivial), but Bodanis is pretty critical, as I recall, of Voltaire's verse. If my memory is correct, it's a mixture of "it's hard for us to appreciate this style now" and outright criticism of the French alexandrine as overly formal, laborious, and repetitive. I don't remember what he thought of the dramas.
says if Voltaire wanted to have a clue that young Crown Prince Fritz was maybe not quite the ideal phiilosopher king in the making after all, he could have gotten it, that they both wanted to use each other while also both being highly receptive to each other's praise - and that they started to get addicted to each other which they couldn't break of. While describing the betrayals on both sides early on before they ever moved in with each other
I approve!
he still thinks Fritz was the more cruel of the two. Not least because Fritz had less to lose. Voltaire was, when it came down to it, a non-noble citizen with whom an absolute King could do whatever he wanted, with no legal protection in the modern sense whatsoever.
I agree with this. As you said, Fritz never learned that punching down was different. All he ever learned was that punching was necessary to stay alive.
Fritz as early as 1740 (!!!) writes to Jordan complaining that Voltaire wanted him to pay Voltaire's travel expenses and actually says "no court jester was ever so expensive";
We had discussed the quote before, but you're right, I hadn't mentioned the year. I approve of your three exclamation marks. He's only just beginning to pay off his debts to half the sugar daddies of Europe, and he's thinking, "Wow, what a money-grabber Voltaire is."
You're right: he prefers those who pay to those who are paid precisely because those who are paid are the competition! :P
as late as the 1770s, when Fritz was already a living legend and had been for decades, his fame assured in every way, he kept writing wistfull that if only Voltaire was still present in Sanssouci, "one could have become something". (Orieux wonders what else Fritz thinks he could have become with Voltaire at his side that he didn't become already, and finds this remark oddly touching.)
Awww. Well, I really think Hille (back in 1730) was right, Fritz wanted to be a poet even more than he wanted to be a musician, he just lacked the talent, and that frustrated him to no end. I mean, it's not just Hille, but Fritz's behavior throughout his life, in his correspondence and everyone's memoirs. (Remember Mitchell? "He made me offer up my opinion on his poetry! It was nerve-wracking, but at least he takes criticism well." Catt: "At least he didn't insist on playing Cyrano for you!" Lucchesini: "I actually liked his poetry! No lie.") Fritz wrote verse like he was running out of time, to adapt a line from a popular musical. ;)
It's sad but not surprising to me that he never stopped thinking Voltaire could have brought him up to a higher level if only they'd had enough time. He apparently unquestioningly adopted all of Voltaire's changes whenever the dirty linen returned to him with cleaning suggestions. And, subconscious addiction aside, improving his poetry and French in general was the overt reason for wanting Voltaire so badly, and was what he meant by "squeeze the orange." I seem to recall him saying to someone (d'Argens? Mitchell?) after the Seven Years' War that he would rather have written (an opera? a drama? something artistic/literary) than won a war.
Oh, Fritz. :-( <3
All the additional information on the relationships between other people that we didn't know about was really interesting! Thank you for all that. It's good to keep fleshing out our knowledge of the actors.
(No mention whether the Fritz one shows traces of darts.)
Darts and kisses, you heard it here first. :P
In Ferney, Voltaire had a portrait of Émilie and one of Fritz.
It's amaaazing how not only do Fritz and Émilie treat each other like romantic rivals, but Voltaire treats them like the two great loves of his life even after moving on. It also reminds me of your wonderful line, which may be my favorite line in the fic and one of my all-time favorite lines from you, from the Fraire fic: "Yet twice in his life, he has touched fire itself." <3
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Re: Jean Orieux: The Life of Voltaire - I
Date: 2020-04-07 12:53 pm (UTC)I also love how this fandom is about historiography almost as much as history. It really makes me feel like you two are my people. If we were just recounting what we read without analyzing it, it would be interesting, but I'd feel less at home here in the salon.
On to the book!
He also is indeed opinionated, and not in the sense of Bodanis' romantisizing...No, Orieux' being opinionated translates, for example, into his unabashedly declaring Voltaire's stage plays (a considerable part of his ouevre) as boring, the products of the dead end phase of French classical drama which deserved to die and be revolutionized not long after Voltaire's death.
I would have to check (and since it was a library book, would be non-trivial), but Bodanis is pretty critical, as I recall, of Voltaire's verse. If my memory is correct, it's a mixture of "it's hard for us to appreciate this style now" and outright criticism of the French alexandrine as overly formal, laborious, and repetitive. I don't remember what he thought of the dramas.
says if Voltaire wanted to have a clue that young Crown Prince Fritz was maybe not quite the ideal phiilosopher king in the making after all, he could have gotten it, that they both wanted to use each other while also both being highly receptive to each other's praise - and that they started to get addicted to each other which they couldn't break of. While describing the betrayals on both sides early on before they ever moved in with each other
I approve!
he still thinks Fritz was the more cruel of the two. Not least because Fritz had less to lose. Voltaire was, when it came down to it, a non-noble citizen with whom an absolute King could do whatever he wanted, with no legal protection in the modern sense whatsoever.
I agree with this. As you said, Fritz never learned that punching down was different. All he ever learned was that punching was necessary to stay alive.
Fritz as early as 1740 (!!!) writes to Jordan complaining that Voltaire wanted him to pay Voltaire's travel expenses and actually says "no court jester was ever so expensive";
We had discussed the quote before, but you're right, I hadn't mentioned the year. I approve of your three exclamation marks. He's only just beginning to pay off his debts to half the sugar daddies of Europe, and he's thinking, "Wow, what a money-grabber Voltaire is."
You're right: he prefers those who pay to those who are paid precisely because those who are paid are the competition! :P
as late as the 1770s, when Fritz was already a living legend and had been for decades, his fame assured in every way, he kept writing wistfull that if only Voltaire was still present in Sanssouci, "one could have become something". (Orieux wonders what else Fritz thinks he could have become with Voltaire at his side that he didn't become already, and finds this remark oddly touching.)
Awww. Well, I really think Hille (back in 1730) was right, Fritz wanted to be a poet even more than he wanted to be a musician, he just lacked the talent, and that frustrated him to no end. I mean, it's not just Hille, but Fritz's behavior throughout his life, in his correspondence and everyone's memoirs. (Remember Mitchell? "He made me offer up my opinion on his poetry! It was nerve-wracking, but at least he takes criticism well." Catt: "At least he didn't insist on playing Cyrano for you!" Lucchesini: "I actually liked his poetry! No lie.") Fritz wrote verse like he was running out of time, to adapt a line from a popular musical. ;)
It's sad but not surprising to me that he never stopped thinking Voltaire could have brought him up to a higher level if only they'd had enough time. He apparently unquestioningly adopted all of Voltaire's changes whenever the dirty linen returned to him with cleaning suggestions. And, subconscious addiction aside, improving his poetry and French in general was the overt reason for wanting Voltaire so badly, and was what he meant by "squeeze the orange." I seem to recall him saying to someone (d'Argens? Mitchell?) after the Seven Years' War that he would rather have written (an opera? a drama? something artistic/literary) than won a war.
Oh, Fritz. :-( <3
All the additional information on the relationships between other people that we didn't know about was really interesting! Thank you for all that. It's good to keep fleshing out our knowledge of the actors.
(No mention whether the Fritz one shows traces of darts.)
Darts and kisses, you heard it here first. :P
In Ferney, Voltaire had a portrait of Émilie and one of Fritz.
It's amaaazing how not only do Fritz and Émilie treat each other like romantic rivals, but Voltaire treats them like the two great loves of his life even after moving on. It also reminds me of your wonderful line, which may be my favorite line in the fic and one of my all-time favorite lines from you, from the Fraire fic: "Yet twice in his life, he has touched fire itself." <3