Welcome back! And yowsers. That's fascinating, and so very ic.
Questions: Did Voltaire "only" forge his correspondance with Madame Denis from 1750-1753, or with his other niece as well? Because I recall Orieux quoting from those letters as well, and at least one of those was pretty slashy as well. (Sadly, I'm currently without the Orieux volume to look up the exact quote, but it goes something like, paraphrased: "Yes, I know it's a big step, but look: king, philosopher, satirist, adores me - who can resist a man like that?" (When explaining why he's moving to Prussia.)
(I suppose if he got the letters back from one niece, he could get it from the other, but Madame Denis was the one living with him and also the one with a personal reason to get back at Fritz after his death. If, however, there's no indication that he retrieved all of his correspondance, including that with his other niece, then he used the flirtation metaphors during the actual time frame already.)
Mildred has already mentioned that MT writing to Joseph re: a Fritzian letter, "he could have used someone to clean up his dirty laundry" would argue she's at least familiar with the story that Voltaire said this about Fritz. BTW, since it's not in the 1752 anonymous pamphlet, my money is on the Imperial Ambassador in Berlin as her source, the Marquis de Puebla, who was around during the Voltaire years. (And according to Lehndorff well connected to Prussian society. His mistress, the Countess von Bredow, kept his portrait on the wall even after he left at the start of the 7 Years War.)
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Re: Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
Date: 2020-08-01 07:10 am (UTC)Questions: Did Voltaire "only" forge his correspondance with Madame Denis from 1750-1753, or with his other niece as well? Because I recall Orieux quoting from those letters as well, and at least one of those was pretty slashy as well. (Sadly, I'm currently without the Orieux volume to look up the exact quote, but it goes something like, paraphrased: "Yes, I know it's a big step, but look: king, philosopher, satirist, adores me - who can resist a man like that?" (When explaining why he's moving to Prussia.)
(I suppose if he got the letters back from one niece, he could get it from the other, but Madame Denis was the one living with him and also the one with a personal reason to get back at Fritz after his death. If, however, there's no indication that he retrieved all of his correspondance, including that with his other niece, then he used the flirtation metaphors during the actual time frame already.)
Mildred has already mentioned that MT writing to Joseph re: a Fritzian letter, "he could have used someone to clean up his dirty laundry" would argue she's at least familiar with the story that Voltaire said this about Fritz. BTW, since it's not in the 1752 anonymous pamphlet, my money is on the Imperial Ambassador in Berlin as her source, the Marquis de Puebla, who was around during the Voltaire years. (And according to Lehndorff well connected to Prussian society. His mistress, the Countess von Bredow, kept his portrait on the wall even after he left at the start of the 7 Years War.)