, remember when Pangels devotee MacDonogh said Fritz wrote that one poem because he was annoyed at Voltaire for hitting on Ulrike?
I remember it well, and it's still milder than what Pangels said, which is that Voltaire's entire slander against Fritz (since according to no one other than Voltaire EVER accused Fritz of being gay) is due to getting his heart broken, since he really truly loved Ulrike.
Given that Davidson reports Voltaire desperately trying to get Bentinck as a mistress during the Potsdam years, I wonder if Fritz, if he did express annoyance at Bentinck (we still lack a source on this), actually meant, "Why does Voltaire keep chasing women when he could have meeeee???
Sounds likely to me. Btw, since Voltaire wrote to people other than Madame Denis - including old friend D'Argental, and his other niece (whom Orieux much prefers, sighing that if it had to be a niece, why not this one?) - and one common threat is that he misses women when at Sanssouci (one reason why he also has rented a flat in Berlin is so he can get out of the all-male atmosphere there once in a while), his continuing penchant for female company definitely must have been noticable.
Of course, with our luck we'll discover six weeks later there is indeed a Fritz letter in which he complains about Bentinck/Heinrich. But until I see it, I'm going with Bentinck/Voltaire as the far more likely cause of his irration.
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Re: Voltaire and Fritz
Date: 2020-07-24 02:29 pm (UTC)I remember it well, and it's still milder than what Pangels said, which is that Voltaire's entire slander against Fritz (since according to no one other than Voltaire EVER accused Fritz of being gay) is due to getting his heart broken, since he really truly loved Ulrike.
Given that Davidson reports Voltaire desperately trying to get Bentinck as a mistress during the Potsdam years, I wonder if Fritz, if he did express annoyance at Bentinck (we still lack a source on this), actually meant, "Why does Voltaire keep chasing women when he could have meeeee???
Sounds likely to me. Btw, since Voltaire wrote to people other than Madame Denis - including old friend D'Argental, and his other niece (whom Orieux much prefers, sighing that if it had to be a niece, why not this one?) - and one common threat is that he misses women when at Sanssouci (one reason why he also has rented a flat in Berlin is so he can get out of the all-male atmosphere there once in a while), his continuing penchant for female company definitely must have been noticable.
Of course, with our luck we'll discover six weeks later there is indeed a Fritz letter in which he complains about Bentinck/Heinrich. But until I see it, I'm going with Bentinck/Voltaire as the far more likely cause of his irration.