Though I have to say, I grabbed the first Voltaire bio I could find on Kindle, by Ian Davidson, and wow, he hates on Émilie, and he thinks Bentinck scored with Heinrich! (And Fritz was upset about that.) So I now think there are worse things than Bodanis.
How dare he. I gathered from Orieux' defensive tone about her (he's a fan!) that there's a bunch of older Voltaire biographers with a hate-on, mostly from before the publication of the (sexual) Madame Denis letters, though. (Which nixed the whole "poor Voltaire, devoted to a woman who first cheats on him with Maupertuis and then with this St. Lambert guy" story.) Older biographers who take that malicious gossip from Madame SuchandSuch that Émilie isn't a real scientist but that her teachers write all her stuff for her as true , and/or don't understand the enormity of what she achieved anyway due to lack of scientific knowledge. But a quick google tells me Davidson is a living author, so he doesn't have those excuses.
(I'm happy to report that my Mr. Pleschinski who translated and edited the Fritz/Voltaire correspondance into Germanin the 1990s thinks Émilie is amazing, as is only proper.)
He thinks Bentinck scored with Heinrich! (And Fritz was upset about that)
Does he provide source citation, and could it be Pangels? I mean, I suppose if you take the early Lehndorff entry where he's upset people think Bentinck scored with Heinrich, and nothing else Lehndorff wrote, you can believe that. Young Lehndorff going "he'd never!" is hardly an argument, Bentinck certainly tried very hard, and Lehndorff in said entry proves there were rumors. Which, given it's late 1751 or 1752 (haven't looked it up again, it's just my vague recollection on Lehndorff's own relationship with Bentinck going "shameless hussy!" to "meeting up/corresponding with my pal Bentinck again to sigh about Heinrich" fits with with these years where he goes from friends to in love with and friends with benefits with Heinrich himself), are understandable; Heinrich is still in his mid 20s, and while every gossip must know he likes men, they may not yet have gathered he likes them exclusively. (Which btw Voltaire in the 1752 anonymous pamphlet seems to have no doubt about.) Whereas later gossips no longer think of Bentinck as an option, and Pangels is the only biographer I've read so far who does. (And I don't think she does so sincerely, because how you can read Lehndorff's diaries and emerge with the idea that Lehndorff ships Heinrich/Bentinck and wanted them together while just having faithful friend interest in Heinrich himself is beyond me. That's a wilful act of falsification in the interest of no-homo'ing.)
Anyway: if Davidson's source is Pangels (with some highly selected and edited diary entries from Lehndorff as back-up), I wouldn't be surprised. However, he adds one new element when saying Fritz (same guy who in the summer of 1751 writes to Wilhelmine re: Heinrich marrying Mina, "women will do him good, muhahaa" ) was upset - does he say why? Because Bentinck wanted his political support against her husband and he thought her having an affair with one of his brothers might lead people to assume she had it? Another reason?
it would make a lot of sense if the boys tried to downplay it as "masturbation practical demo and technique sharing between two totally het randy young men,"
Sounds all extremely plausible to me. I'm still baffled why FW never discovered masturbation himself as a boy, unless the Calvinist teacher who put the fear of God and predestination into him also covered the subject with a mighty DON'T DO IT OR YOU WILL GO TO HELL and young FW was suitably impressed and didn't. Since he was an only child, and really seems to have be utterly caught by surprise that Fritz given the same education would not be just like him, the idea tat different children and youths could respond differently seems to have been new to FW.
(Btw, nothing in Beuys about Sophie Charlotte sending her lady-in-waiting to deflower him, so either Klepper made that up or Beuys thought the source was so unreliable as to not be included in her biography. Not being a biographer but a novelist, Klepper is certainly allowed to make it up.)
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Re: The STD thread
Date: 2020-07-23 05:26 am (UTC)How dare he. I gathered from Orieux' defensive tone about her (he's a fan!) that there's a bunch of older Voltaire biographers with a hate-on, mostly from before the publication of the (sexual) Madame Denis letters, though. (Which nixed the whole "poor Voltaire, devoted to a woman who first cheats on him with Maupertuis and then with this St. Lambert guy" story.) Older biographers who take that malicious gossip from Madame SuchandSuch that Émilie isn't a real scientist but that her teachers write all her stuff for her as true , and/or don't understand the enormity of what she achieved anyway due to lack of scientific knowledge. But a quick google tells me Davidson is a living author, so he doesn't have those excuses.
(I'm happy to report that my Mr. Pleschinski who translated and edited the Fritz/Voltaire correspondance into Germanin the 1990s thinks Émilie is amazing, as is only proper.)
He thinks Bentinck scored with Heinrich! (And Fritz was upset about that)
Does he provide source citation, and could it be Pangels? I mean, I suppose if you take the early Lehndorff entry where he's upset people think Bentinck scored with Heinrich, and nothing else Lehndorff wrote, you can believe that. Young Lehndorff going "he'd never!" is hardly an argument, Bentinck certainly tried very hard, and Lehndorff in said entry proves there were rumors. Which, given it's late 1751 or 1752 (haven't looked it up again, it's just my vague recollection on Lehndorff's own relationship with Bentinck going "shameless hussy!" to "meeting up/corresponding with my pal Bentinck again to sigh about Heinrich" fits with with these years where he goes from friends to in love with and friends with benefits with Heinrich himself), are understandable; Heinrich is still in his mid 20s, and while every gossip must know he likes men, they may not yet have gathered he likes them exclusively. (Which btw Voltaire in the 1752 anonymous pamphlet seems to have no doubt about.) Whereas later gossips no longer think of Bentinck as an option, and Pangels is the only biographer I've read so far who does. (And I don't think she does so sincerely, because how you can read Lehndorff's diaries and emerge with the idea that Lehndorff ships Heinrich/Bentinck and wanted them together while just having faithful friend interest in Heinrich himself is beyond me. That's a wilful act of falsification in the interest of no-homo'ing.)
Anyway: if Davidson's source is Pangels (with some highly selected and edited diary entries from Lehndorff as back-up), I wouldn't be surprised. However, he adds one new element when saying Fritz (same guy who in the summer of 1751 writes to Wilhelmine re: Heinrich marrying Mina, "women will do him good, muhahaa" ) was upset - does he say why? Because Bentinck wanted his political support against her husband and he thought her having an affair with one of his brothers might lead people to assume she had it? Another reason?
it would make a lot of sense if the boys tried to downplay it as "masturbation practical demo and technique sharing between two totally het randy young men,"
Sounds all extremely plausible to me. I'm still baffled why FW never discovered masturbation himself as a boy, unless the Calvinist teacher who put the fear of God and predestination into him also covered the subject with a mighty DON'T DO IT OR YOU WILL GO TO HELL and young FW was suitably impressed and didn't. Since he was an only child, and really seems to have be utterly caught by surprise that Fritz given the same education would not be just like him, the idea tat different children and youths could respond differently seems to have been new to FW.
(Btw, nothing in Beuys about Sophie Charlotte sending her lady-in-waiting to deflower him, so either Klepper made that up or Beuys thought the source was so unreliable as to not be included in her biography. Not being a biographer but a novelist, Klepper is certainly allowed to make it up.)