Voltaire at his best indeed! (And also the royals, for once.)
Except for one. Looking at you, Louis XV!
(Voltaire is also at his best in the Calas story, which in the biography gets told more extensively than I have ever seen it before, but that one has gruesome deaths, torture and horrible prosecution, so it has plenty of other people at their worst. (Think Dreyfus Affair. J'Accuse indeed.) BTW, I see Youtube has a French movie based on it, and that one also has Mademoiselle Corneille in the cast, as her time with Voltaire overlaps with the start of the saga.
He really did go with her to church every Sunday, thus refuting, in public, the accusation that he was seducing her to godlessness and neglecting her Christian education (which would have ruined her marriage chances). Incidentally, when the Jesuits were banned by the Pope and Fritz was hosting them in Prussia, Voltaire was also hosting one, Father Adam, in Ferney (as Boswell among others noticed with a ?!?); Oriexu points out that as much as Voltaire had a go at the Jesuits (and other orders) while they were still in power, the moment they were out of power he changed his tune. Before that, he'd always made an exception for his Jesuit teachers, whom he'd liked as much as he disliked his father, and had kept in contact with his favourit teachers. Who kept getting signed copies of his works and were in a strange mixture of pride and facepalm about young Arouet all the time.
As most biographies did, this one had various reproductions of Voltaire portraits, both painted ones and the most famous bust - made shortly before his death - as well as the statue by Pigalle made several years before that, and I was reminded again that in an age where so many portraits look alike or at least very similar, courtesy of the wigs and the portrait painters flattering their subjects, Voltaire actually is always distinguishable as him. I mean, you really can tell that the man from the portrait in my icon is also this guy. (And also this earlier depiction, in the nude, for which Fritz paid a share.)
Re: Jean Orieux: The Life of Voltaire - I
Except for one. Looking at you, Louis XV!
(Voltaire is also at his best in the Calas story, which in the biography gets told more extensively than I have ever seen it before, but that one has gruesome deaths, torture and horrible prosecution, so it has plenty of other people at their worst. (Think Dreyfus Affair. J'Accuse indeed.) BTW, I see Youtube has a French movie based on it, and that one also has Mademoiselle Corneille in the cast, as her time with Voltaire overlaps with the start of the saga.
He really did go with her to church every Sunday, thus refuting, in public, the accusation that he was seducing her to godlessness and neglecting her Christian education (which would have ruined her marriage chances). Incidentally, when the Jesuits were banned by the Pope and Fritz was hosting them in Prussia, Voltaire was also hosting one, Father Adam, in Ferney (as Boswell among others noticed with a ?!?); Oriexu points out that as much as Voltaire had a go at the Jesuits (and other orders) while they were still in power, the moment they were out of power he changed his tune. Before that, he'd always made an exception for his Jesuit teachers, whom he'd liked as much as he disliked his father, and had kept in contact with his favourit teachers. Who kept getting signed copies of his works and were in a strange mixture of pride and facepalm about young Arouet all the time.
As most biographies did, this one had various reproductions of Voltaire portraits, both painted ones and the most famous bust - made shortly before his death - as well as the statue by Pigalle made several years before that, and I was reminded again that in an age where so many portraits look alike or at least very similar, courtesy of the wigs and the portrait painters flattering their subjects, Voltaire actually is always distinguishable as him. I mean, you really can tell that the man from the portrait in my icon is also this guy. (And also this earlier depiction, in the nude, for which Fritz paid a share.)