Maupertuis not being super cool like, oh, say, Émilie
Very few people are cool like Émilie, that's a high bar. ;) But Maupertuis led an expedition to Lapland to take measurements to support his theory about the shape of the planet, which is pretty cool in my book. (Algarotti, you should have gone!)
for religious people in those days a fast death wasn't actually a good thing either the way it would be for us, soooooo.... maybe that was the best he could hope for?
Hmm. For Catholics, who need to receive last rites and die shriven, that's definitely true. I have no idea whether, in Peter's Protestant denomination, a quick death would have been perceived as a bad thing by his wife. MT was unusually pious, after all, and I have no idea about Ariane. At any rate, he did get to say goodbye and receive some religious consolation of the sort he wanted (at least according to the theologian writing his eulogy--always consider the source here: Wikipedia tells me Formey was accused* of claiming in a pamphlet that Fritz--Fritz!--was actually very devout), so, yes, there's something to be said for getting the chance to make final arrangements, especially since he was so young and it was so unexpected.
* Apparently he denied it, but somebody must have thought it was plausible. We've also seen evidence he was putting a positive spin on everything in this eulogy, so given that he was religious, he may have overstressed Peter's commitment to religion, who knows.
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Re: Peter Keith eulogy
Date: 2020-06-04 09:00 am (UTC)Very few people are cool like Émilie, that's a high bar. ;) But Maupertuis led an expedition to Lapland to take measurements to support his theory about the shape of the planet, which is pretty cool in my book. (Algarotti, you should have gone!)
for religious people in those days a fast death wasn't actually a good thing either the way it would be for us, soooooo.... maybe that was the best he could hope for?
Hmm. For Catholics, who need to receive last rites and die shriven, that's definitely true. I have no idea whether, in Peter's Protestant denomination, a quick death would have been perceived as a bad thing by his wife. MT was unusually pious, after all, and I have no idea about Ariane. At any rate, he did get to say goodbye and receive some religious consolation of the sort he wanted (at least according to the theologian writing his eulogy--always consider the source here: Wikipedia tells me Formey was accused* of claiming in a pamphlet that Fritz--Fritz!--was actually very devout), so, yes, there's something to be said for getting the chance to make final arrangements, especially since he was so young and it was so unexpected.
* Apparently he denied it, but somebody must have thought it was plausible. We've also seen evidence he was putting a positive spin on everything in this eulogy, so given that he was religious, he may have overstressed Peter's commitment to religion, who knows.