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Frederick the Great, discussion post 16
We have slowed down a lot, but are still (sporadically) going! And somehow filled up the last post while I wasn't looking!
...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D
...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D
Voltaire and Émilie
How few excuses he has, let me show you them! Copyright 2010!1 He cites what must be every sexually explicit passage from Voltaire to Madame Denis. I've never read so many mentions of Voltaire's prick2 and her arse!
He has no mention of Pangels, though he admits his biography is select rather than scholarly. I was wondering if that was where he got it from.
He has no citation for Bentinck/Heinrich or Fritz's displeasure at all. This is the passage:
Sophie was much younger than Voltaire and full of gusto, and she may have had love affairs with other men in Berlin – with Prince Henri, younger brother of Frederick (to Frederick’s irritation) and even, most poignantly, with Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe, the younger (legitimate) son of her dead lover Wolfgang, now in his late twenties – but not with Voltaire.
Just take his word for it, I guess.
"women will do him good, muhahaa"
I was thinking of this! Though apparently, according to your original report of this line, I had to look up the original for that one, and Fritz writes "la femme", singular.
Still.
Another reason?
"Reason." You give him too much credit. :P
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.
This makes perfect sense to me.
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.)
Unless you're Davidson, in which case, poor Voltaire, devoted to a woman who ran him ragged and held him back intellectually and couldn't commit to him, thus finally forcing him to look elsewhere for fulfillment. With her mathematical talent, and her lack of emotional control, she was probably autistic (!!) and couldn't understand how men would perceive her passionate expressions of love.
You know, I'm so glad that Kindle books exist in my time of chronic pain, but I super hate being limited to them, (plus, lately, whatever I can scan and stand to read in very small font on my phone).
The double standard of "she can't commit to one man, could be autism!" is stunning.
To be fair, he does acknowledge that Voltaire's ten year flirtation with Fritz contributed to the deterioration of their relationship in a way that Voltaire was oblivious to, BUT, at no point has he so far pathologized this. Naturally you would want to flirt with Fritz! (And have sex with your niece, I guess.) Especially if Émilie is smothering you with her demands.
Oh, and this is my favorite quote so far. It's the second paragraph of the chapter after Émilie dies:
Émilie had done her best to keep Voltaire away from Potsdam and to rein in his intellectual and creative life, and to some extent she had succeeded: it is striking how little Voltaire produced during the last four years of their life together. With her death he regained his freedom not just to go to Prussia but also to think and to write what he wanted. It was only after her death, and in the relative calm and solitude of Frederick’s court, that Voltaire was finally able to finish Le Siècle de Louis XIV.
Davidson! I can understand pre-1753 Voltaire being frustrated at being caught between Fritz and Émilie and having to choose, but you have the benefit of hindsight!
I haven't yet got to the Fritz/Voltaire breakup, but am super looking forward to seeing how he handles that, and by "looking forward to" I mean "munching popcorn."
(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.)
Indeed, indeed. Pleased to hear it.
1 I would have cut an older biographer some slack on the Émilie-hating. I'm cutting the 1973 Lord Hervey biographer some slack on the one expression of toxic masculinity I've run into so far (I'm only a few pages in, because I had to scan it and thus the font is so small). But 2010!
2 My heart and my prick send you the most tender good wishes. This evening I shall surely see you.
Davidson footnotes this with:
As so often, Voltaire wrote to Mme Denis in Italian. In her copy of this letter she heavily crossed out the Italian word for ‘prick’ (cazzo), replacing it with the word spirito.
Given what happened to Lehndorff's diary, I have to ask: are we 100% sure this was in her handwriting?
Re: Voltaire and Émilie
As for the autism charge for Émilie and no suggestion of pathological reasons for Voltaire, yeah, the double standard is breathtaking. (Again, even Fritz when gossiping with D'Argens about her love life a decade after her death doesn't come up with the Rokoko equivalant of this charge.)
the relative calm and solitude of Frederick’s court
*snort* Do tell how he handles the big breakup.
Given what happened to Lehndorff's diary, I have to ask: are we 100% sure this was in her handwriting?
I assume the difference between Lehndorff's handwriting and that of his descendant was marked enough for Schmidt-Lötzen to notice at once. He, however, is tactful enough not to say who it was, while Ziebura in the introduction to her translation of the 1799 journal has no such problem. 'Twas the Countess Lehndorff who ended up giving Schmidt-Lötzen permission to publish. Apparantly this was her last ditch attempt to save her ancestor's and Heinrich's reputations before giving up. Since this means the "elle" for "lui" etc. would have been relatively recently added, I assume there was also the difference between a fresh crossing out/overwriting and Lehndorff's original faded ink.
The last one, of course, would not apply to Madame Denis trying to cross out and overwriting words Voltaire had written, since this would have been only a few decades later at most. Ditto for anyone after her trying this in the 19th century, which by the 20 century when the letters were published would have looked old as well. However, since her own letters are preserved, there are ample examples of her handwriting, and if there are not just strike outs but added words, I do trust that experts are able to tell whether or not the added words are from the same person. At any rate, considering Madame Denis sold Voltaire's library and some of his clothing to Catherine, she might have wanted to sell some of the letters, too. Catherine was definitely interested in buying up additional Voltaire letters (additional to those she had received herself), which I was recently reminded of because her literary handyman in Paris, Melchior Grimm, offered Heinrich to buy his. (However few or many Heinrich received aren't in existence anymore, and at any rate he drew the line there, because of the Fritz comments in them. Reading Voltaire's memoirs with added comments out loud for your friends is cool, but providing a foreign monarch with material, even if it's AnhaltSophie, would not be for him, it seems. Anyway, selling letters of a dead celebrity was quite common, and Madame Denis might have considered it before realising there was no way this letters would pass as anything but what they were and keeping them.
This article about the original publication of the letters in the 1950s reminds me that - as Orieux noted, too, - Madame Denis was as vehemently against Voltaire going to Potsdam as Émilie had ever been, so dies Richardson mention this?
Re: Voltaire and Émilie
That's *exactly* what he is! It makes Bodanis' shameless romanticization of his two favorites almost refreshing. The whitewashing gave me doubts about his scholarship, but I at least enjoyed reading it.
Seriously though, "she held him back intellectually" is a stunner I had not expected even from an Émilie hater.
Nobody could have expected this! She's keeping him from his destiny, which is to
bebreak up epically with Fritz.the relative calm and solitude of Frederick’s court
*snort* Do tell how he handles the big breakup.
Will do. Remember when Fritz made Voltaire promise to stop satirizing people and "behave in a manner which is suitable for a man of letters who has the honour of being a chamberlain to His Majesty, and who lives among honest men"? This reminded me of that. (As I did this write-up, I kept rereading that line to see if maybe I'd hallucinated it.)
Thank you for your excellent-as-always scholarship on the letters! If you'd been a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1752, I'm sure you would have voted against the Leibniz fragment being a forgery. ;)
Madame Denis was as vehemently against Voltaire going to Potsdam as Émilie had ever been, so dies Richardson mention this?
Not that I remember, but I admit I'm skimming, mostly looking for material for the chronology (once I'm capable of typing it up). I'll keep an eye out for it, though.
Oh, and re Fritz being annoyed at Bentinck/Heinrich, remember when Pangels devotee MacDonogh said Fritz wrote that one poem because he was annoyed at Voltaire for hitting on Ulrike? And some scholar wrote a whole article arguing the contrary? And you and I went and read the poem and concluded that Fritz didn't take Voltaire/Ulrike seriously enough to get annoyed, but what he really wanted was Voltaire to hit on him, and the whole poem was nothing but a broad hint best translated, "But what about meeee??"
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??? Freaking Émilie."
Fritz to biographers: My priorities are not what you think my priorities are.
Re: Voltaire and Émilie
HAHAHAHAHA!
Re: Voltaire and Fritz
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.
Re: Voltaire and Fritz
Oh, sheesh. "No one other than Voltaire EVER accused Fritz of being gay" is in MacDonogh, but I don't remember him saying anything about it being related to his true love for Ulrike. *facepalm*
Davidson at least says sth to the effect of, "People have claimed his supposed homosexuality was just a canard put out by Voltaire, but...regardless of his sexuality, he was clearly gay in some sense and obviously in a way that colored his feelings for Voltaire." Which I agree with: even if Fritz had a low sex drive, which I'm undecided about, he was obviously homoromantic and sexually *attracted* to men. You can be attracted to someone without "I want to drop what I'm doing and get down and dirty with them right now" immediately following. And so I will defend Fritz as gay regardless of intensity of sex drive.
Of course, with our luck we'll discover six weeks later there is indeed a Fritz letter in which he complains about Bentinck/Heinrich.
Indeed! "Citation needed...citation found!" is the story of our fandom. I remember "There stands one who will avenge me" as a stellar example.
But until I see it, I'm going with Bentinck/Voltaire as the far more likely cause of his irration.
I did at least proceed to find the quote where Fritz was annoyed at Voltaire's political interference in that situation. So it could be. Fritz could also have been annoyed if he felt Heinrich was siding with her politically (whether or not he was--this is "watch out for intriguing princes of the blood!" political testament time from Fritz).
Re: Voltaire and Fritz
BTW, it just occurs to me that if Heinrich hadn't been married by that point already, then Bentinck could have tried not to not just seduce but to marry him because then Prussia would have been obliged to push her claims against her ex husband for her territory. But since he was married, and couldn't divorce Mina without getting Fritz' permission first, which AW just had failed at getting re: Sophie von Pannewitz/Voss, there was no chance of that.
Re: Voltaire and Madame Denis
Was he, as some scholars think, obliquely referring to the question of possibly marrying Mme Denis? The idea seems absurd. Mme Denis was his niece, and marriage with her would be incestuous and illegal. And yet it was not absolutely impossible, in the eighteenth century, for a man to marry his niece, if he got the right papal dispensation. Charles-Marie de La Condamine, the mathematician and physicist and one of Voltaire’s friends, married his niece in 1756; and the financier Jean Pâris de Montmartel also married his niece. Voltaire investigated the question in some detail. He claimed that there may have been about forty such marriages every year; and he estimated that the cost of the papal dispensation would have been some 120,000 francs (‘once you include the small expenses’), though he went on to say: ‘I have always heard it said that it cost M. de Montmartel only 80,000 francs.’
If Voltaire was so interested in the question of marriage between uncles and nieces and what it entailed, the implication must be that at some stage he gave real consideration to the idea of marriage with Mme Denis.
Footnoted citations: Voltaire, Romans et contes, pot-pourri, vol. XIII (Éditions de La Pléiade, Paris), p. 464 (first published in 1765); Voltaire, Mélanges, La Défense de mon oncle, de l’inceste (Éditions de La Pléiade, Paris), p. 1156, (first published in 1767).
Thoughts?
Re: Voltaire and Madame Denis
Re: Voltaire and Madame Denis
Or if he was Protestant and the King's brother, says Ferdinand. Anyway, what Cahn said. V.v.. Voltaire to check out the expenses and precedents here. Mind you, I can think of another reason why he might have at least considered making it official and marrying Madame Denis: in theory, either or both of them could have ended up in prison because it was illegal. Voltaire wasn't just the son of a notary but also in his later life the attacker of various legal injustices, so he was quite aware of how easily the law could destroy you even if you hadn't committed any offense. The good city councillors of Geneva, for example, might have been willing to put up with his non-religiosity, but uncle/niece incest could have been one thing too many?
Conversely, and also possible: he might have been afraid Madame Denis would remarry and leave him, otherwise, at least early on.
Re: Voltaire and Madame Denis
Davidson quotes numerous letters early on where she keeps talking about getting married to someone else, and Voltaire keeps freaking out, so yes, there is that.
Re: Voltaire and Fritz
Davidson on the Prussian years:
1750: Voltaire is in the wrong during the whole swindle involving the banker.
1751: Things are calm and quiet and he gets a lot of work done.
1752, part the first: Maupertuis is an idiot and the Academy is filled with his stooges. Maupertuis threatens our hero with violence! (Mildred: Is this the duel challenge?)
1752, part the second: Fritz's decision to
go up against Voltaire when satire is on the lineget involved in the pamphlet war is a tactical error. And then the whole pamphlet-burning shows that Voltaire was wrong to think of him as an enlightened monarch. Time to get out of here!1753: In Frankfurt, Freytag does some bad stuff and disobeys Fritz's orders. If you want to know what's in that book of poems Fritz wants back or why he wants it, or whether Fritz is authorized to put Voltaire under house arrest there, or whether Voltaire was more than mildly annoyed, you'll have to find out from another source. This is the most boring account of the Frankfurt episode you'll ever read, especially considering how lively my writing has been up until 1750. The only exciting part is where Mme Denis almost gets raped. :/
Post-1753: Likewise, just as Émilie's death turned out to be great for his career, the departure from Prussia all worked out for the best, because the happiest time of Voltaire's life was during his involuntary exile.
Seriously a letdown as far as capturing the drama.
Noteworthy parts from these two chapters:
* Berlin is the first time Voltaire realizes the French Enlightenment is happening and that he's part of it. Until then, he was just an isolated figure doing his own thing and ignoring his contemporaries.
* Voltaire gave Bentinck advice on how best to present her case to Fritz (Mildred: I'm trying to figure out if he's the most or least qualified person to do this); actual quote from a letter from Fritz chiding Voltaire for involving himself in her affairs which were none of his business. Oh, and this lovely quote from Fritz: "I must warn you, that if you have a passion for intrigues and cabals, you have come to the wrong place." (Mildred: Pull the other one, Fritz, it's got bells on.)
* If Davidson's correct, and it does sound plausible, the Academy vote was unanimous because the dissenters abstained. He goes for the "knowing which side their bread was buttered on" explanation:
Since Maupertuis had total power over all aspects of the Academy, notably the salaries of the members, most of them meekly did what he wanted, and on 13 April 1752 they found Kœnig guilty; those who disagreed simply stayed away.
Author of the Maupertuis bio, of course, just says it was unanimous.
* After 1753, Voltaire wanted to get back at Fritz, so he got back all the letters he wrote to Mme Denis from this period and doctored them to make Fritz look worse. This means they're all suspect, including the "dirty laundry" and "orange peel" anecdotes.
It was not until late in the twentieth century that scholars finally realised that these letters had been cooked by Voltaire and that they cannot be taken literally.
Is this true? Does Pleschinski say this at all?
Re: Voltaire and Fritz
I suppose? Because I can't recall another violence threat.
Berlin is the first time Voltaire realizes the French Enlightenment is happening and that he's part of it. Until then, he was just an isolated figure doing his own thing and ignoring his contemporaries.
? He was literary feuding with half of them, which I wouldn't call "ignoring". And he did have pals, both French and international, hence all those visitors in Cirey (hello Algarotti).
Unanimous vote: now this sounds plausible to me.
Doctored letters: Pleschinski's translation is strictly Voltaire/Fritz, not any of the Madame Denis letters. Also he originally published it in 1991, I think. Of course there's editing text covering who is who and what went on between letters, but I don't recall him mentioning anything of the sort. And Orieux, of course, published his biography in the 1960s, so there is no research beyond that point, either.
Mind you, it would be entirely ic for these two (remember the part where Fritz had a Voltaire poem forged to get him into (more) trouble?), but otoh, what I consider even more likely is that Voltaire, if he doctored, made himself look better/smarter by inserting sentences showing he was aware Fritz was being despotic, and that he wasn't planning on staying after the first year anyway.
Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
Is this true? Does Pleschinski say this at all?
Voltaire went back and fabricated his entire Prussian-resident-era correspondence with Madame Denis in the vengeance-filled winter of 1753 to 1754, and arranged for these fake letters to be released to the public by Denis after his death. Voltairean scholars thought these letters were legitimate for a VERY long time. Like, for almost 200 years.
To give you some context about when these letters were discovered to be doctored:
Theodore Besterman, the Most Passionate Voltaire Scholar, collected and published as much of Voltaire's correspondence as he could from the 1950s until his death in 1974, after which his work was taken over by the Voltaire Foundation, which he founded. His work was VERY important for Voltairean scholarship; it is his editions of Voltaire's correspondence that serve as the basis for the Electronic Enlightenment database. He treats the entire Prussia-era Voltaire-Denis correspondence as authentic, and all Voltaire scholars based their analyses on his work. In 1953, it was noted by French scholar Jean Nivat that, in an October 1753 letter, Voltaire requests for Denis to return their (real) correspondence to him so he can begin work on a literary project called 'Pamela', a reference to an English novel written by Samuel Richardson. Nivat questioned whether this 'Pamela' was a work of Voltaire's which had been lost to time, since none of Voltaire's known published works seemed to have anything to do with the Pamela novel except for Nanine, which was published in 1749; Besterman rejected this and said there was no lost 'Pamela' project.
It wasn't until 1989 that French professor André Magnan proved that the Voltaire-Denis letters were fabricated by Voltaire in his French-language analysis in Dossier Voltaire en Prusse (1750-1753), and that this fabrication was the very 'literary project' that Voltaire called 'Pamela'. This very helpful English-language review of the book summarises Magnan's findings. Only 3 of the Prussian-resident-era letters between Voltaire and Madame Denis can even be called 'letters'; more than 50 others are basically an extended novel written by Voltaire in the form of letters and passed off as a real correspondence to get revenge on Friedrich in the eyes of posterity.
Any Voltaire biographies written before 1989, and even most written in the 1990s, will treat these letters and the events depicted in them as authentic. As late as 1995 French scholars were still discussing whether this series of fictionalised letters should be called 'Pamela' or something else. In the end, most modern scholars call these letters 'Pamela' or 'Paméla', and you can find analyses about them under this title, mostly from 2005 onwards in English (it took a while for English-language scholarship to catch up to the French, as often happens with new findings published in foreign languages):
-- What's in a Name? Reflections on Voltaire's Pamela (2005)
-- On the Voltaire Foundation's website the PAMÉLA text is summarised as late as 2010:
"Paméla, a reworking of letters to Mme Denis during his years in Prussia (which were long thought to be authentic), gives a very carefully constructed view of the period, where attitudes are modified, chronology manipulated, details omitted. The same is true of the Mémoires, where the perspective is different, but still issues are simplified, and evidence changed at will. Through these two texts, Voltaire speaks directly to posterity, as he seeks to claim the authority to write about himself, to create and control his image."
-- The Best of All Possible Marriages: Voltaire and Frederick in Paméla (2013)
Of course, the Electronic Enlightenment database never mentions that these letters are inauthentic either, since the annotations provided are Besterman's own. Hence some of the quotes I have provided here before are unfortunately part of the fake narrative Voltaire pushed, including this one, which
"I have been handed over, my dear, with all due formalities, to the King of Prussia. The marriage is accomplished: will it be happy? I do not know in the least: yet I cannot prevent myself saying, Yes. After coquetting for so many years, marriage was the necessary end. My heart beat hard even at the altar."
Voltaire wasn't playfully using flirtatious language here; this is "Fritz is gay!!!" controversy-stirring rhetoric written with the same intention as what Voltaire wrote in his memoirs, doubling as an allusion to Pamela's exploitative marriage in the Pamela novel. Voltaire is also being dramatic here, wanting to introduce a sense of irony, since he of course knows how the 'marriage' will end up.
It also means that the events aptly summarised by
"I wish he wouldn't always bring me his dirty laundry to clean," Voltaire says one day when he has to interrupt his own work, which happens to be an entirely new way of describing history by using the age of Louis XIV as an example. Unfortunately, he says this within hearing of La Mettrie, who tells Maupertuis, who tells the King. This is something Voltaire will only discover later, as the King says nothing to him about it, not directly. On the other hand, the various guests of the King's carefully selected table round suddenly all seem to know that the King has told La Mettrie he simply needs Voltaire for his exquisite French and for his knowledge. "I'll squeeze him dry like an orange," La Mettrie quotes Federic when Voltaire point blank asks him about this, "and then I'll throw away the peel."
... the only evidence we have for this entire scenario was written after the fact by Voltaire as part of a revenge novel in the form of fake letters. That this story is present in so many of Voltaire's biographies is a testament to how successfully Voltaire controlled the narrative of 'what went on behind the scenes in Prussia'. All we really have in regards to these events is a falsified correspondence which Voltaire himself likened to a fictional novel.
Basically, if you ever see any quotes from Voltaire to Madame Denis, or from Madame Denis to Voltaire, and they're alleged to be from 1750 to 1753 in an English-language biography written before 2010 or a French-language biography written before 2000, both you and the writer have been fooled by Voltaire across time.
Re: Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
My absolute favorite part of this fandom is the constant breaking news: either finding the answer to something we've been wondering about, or discovering something we thought was true has just been turned on its head.
I had on my list of things to talk about (which is unfortunately getting quite long, as my computer time is limited by health--I hope you're having more luck with your health problems) the letters that we can no longer use as evidence, which include, among others:
- marriage to the King of Prussia
- dirty laundry
- orange peel
- Darget being unhappy about the Palladion
About the dirty laundry, though, Jessen reports MT using the phrase in a letter to Joseph in 1766, so while Voltaire was still alive, i.e. before the posthumous publications of his memoirs and letters. So word of this phrase being used in regards to Fritz's terrible spelling must have been making the rounds in Europe, however it originated.
his French-language analysis in Dossier Voltaire en Prusse (1750-1753)
Man, I admit I would love to read this. Need to work on my French after German!
Voltaire is also being dramatic here, wanting to introduce a sense of irony, since he of course knows how the 'marriage' will end up.
You know, I did think that line was odd, but I wrote it off as the fact that he'd spent 10 years reluctant to commit. It makes infinitely more sense now.
Voltaire speaks directly to posterity, as he seeks to claim the authority to write about himself, to create and control his image.
Well, one thing I learned (from a source of unknown reliability!) was that in the bard-dominated ancient/medieval Irish culture, even the kings were warned about pissing off bards, because an angry bard will compose a satire against you.
Unfortunately for Voltaire, Fritz is made of teflon (or was until mid-20th century), and anyone who didn't want to believe Fritz was gay wrote it off as "just a Voltairean canard."
Also, Voltaire, speaking from the POV posterity, I already knew Fritz was gay, all lines like "my heart beat nervously at the altar" accomplish is making you come across as Gay for FritzTM. :P
Oh, the "can't live without you, can't live with you" letter, that was from Voltaire to Fritz and is still authentic as far as we know, right?
It also means that the events aptly summarised by [personal profile] selenak in her fanfic probably didn't happen
Yeah, the longer we stay in this fandom, the more inaccurate all our fics look. :D Prussian Trenck fooled me into including him as batman at Soor! Now there's an author's note at the end of my fic saying, "If he gets to write fiction, so do I."
We can say the same for Voltaire: if he gets to write fiction, so do we!
both you and the writer have been fooled by Voltaire across time.
And Catt is still fooling scholars, some 150 years after Koser took his credibility apart. After Trenck and Catt, I guess it was Voltaire's turn! He is the resident trickster of our fandom, after all.
So I'm glad I picked up Davidson, but how did you run across this? Looks like we were both making this discovery around the same time (although you went a lot deeper than I did).
Re: Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
Yep, because it's from the Prussian State Archive. How's this for irony: both Fritz and Voltaire didn't hesitate to falsify evidence about each other, but with their correspondance, they couldn't do that because the other party kept the receipts, so to speak. Also reply letters will mention things in the previous letter etc. (For example, the letter where Voltaire makes the rat/lion comparison for himself and Fritz (complete with signing off "the rat kisses your paws"), which I also love, has a reply letter from Fritz where he picks up the metaphor and runs with it. You can bet that if Voltaire had altered or rewritten any letters there, Preuss et all would have pounced.
Re: Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
Also, this is AMAZING. :D
More later as I, uh, am frantically finishing up a fic tonight. But speaking of fic, you may be interested in knowing that there are about to be five (slash) fics coming out for 18th C Frederician RPF! (Collection is supposed to open tomorrow, but may be delayed due to late-breaking pinch hits.)
Re: Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
Pleeeease don't let it be delayed, there are 5 fics waiting for our little fandom!
five (slash) fics coming out for 18th C Frederician RPF!
Voltaire also wrote a slash fic for 18th C Frederician RPF! It was a self-insert!
Re: Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
(Somewhere in the distance, there's Zimmermann, who would have shipped himself with Fritz if he hadn't had so much homophobia, and thus decided to become the 18th Century's lone Fritz/MT shipper instead.
Re: Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
Zimmermann, who would have shipped himself with Fritz if he hadn't had so much homophobia
So, SO true.
Re: Voltaire's Fabricated Letters
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.)
Re: Voltaire and Émilie
Is it possible that even though "la femme" is singular that it refers to women in general (so that "women" would actually be a better English translation)? I feel like French does this sometimes, although my French isn't good enough to be able to tell reliably when it does and when it actually means the literal English translation.
Re: Voltaire and Émilie
Re: Voltaire and Émilie
He says it comes across as insulting and misogynistic either way, which, you know, Fritz is a misogynist, news at 11. ;) But given that Fritz is gay and the one forcing the marriage and he's talking specifically about the marriage when he says thus, we agree he's probably not talking about Heinrich's sexuality but about how this marriage is a really great idea, like all of Fritz's ideas.
Plus I gave Guillaume the whole passage, and he says that there would have been much more natural ways to say "women" in that sentence, even if you wanted to be misogynistic about it.
So that's the verdict from our Frenchman.