The whole period of FW's impending death and Fritz becoming king was really interesting to read - the mixed feelings and anxiety from Fritz re: having to leave his Rheinsberg paradise, vs. a lot of hope and encouragement from Voltaire, and then indeed the difference in Fritz' attitude once he's king (you'll see no other change in me than greater determination/efficency is what he says in February :D which ... isn't entirely wrong?). It also got across the absurdity of one man suddenly becoming an absolutist monarch I thought.
So Fritz repeatedly voices thoughts like these, which are from his first letter on the topic, February 26th: Happy if I had lived without being transplanted/ From this mild and peaceful climate/ Where my freedom flourished/ Into this scabrous, rugged, difficult terrain,/ Infected by Machiavellianism! And then from March 23rd: When I can neither read nor work, I am like those great tobacco takers who die of anxiety, and who put their hands in their pockets a thousand times, when their snuffbox has been taken away. The decoration of the building can change, without altering in any way the foundations or the walls; this is what you will see in me, because my father's situation leaves us no hope of recovery. So I must prepare to undergo my destiny. Privacy would be better suited to my freedom [...]. You know that I like independence, and that it is very hard to give it up in order to submit to a painful duty.
Voltaire in return writes the "I dream of my prince like one dreams of a mistress" line in one of his later replies, and I thought his very first one to the February letter was actually quite touching, from I don't know the exact state of your current circumstances, but I've never loved and admired you more to king or prince, you are always my king. I mean, I'd read about a hundred pages of Voltaire complimenting Fritz by that point and these still stood out.
(Also, in between, May 3rd, Fritz tried to put a ring on it?! ;) - May my ring, my dear Voltaire, never leave your finger. This talisman is filled with so many wishes for your person, that it must of necessity bring you happiness)
Oh, and I thought the King vs. Human Fritz thing being introduced was interesting as a symptom of the transition and the relationship, started by Fritz telling Voltaire that he should keep treating him like a normal human being, not a king (later: Voltaire in Berlin -> Fritz: "that's totally not how I meant that"), upon which Voltaire starts alternating between calling him Your Majesty and Your Humanity for a while and keeps bringing up that differentiation in various contexts (including the one where he asks Fritz the human being about his father's attitude towards him before his death, which Fritz doesn't really answer, as selenak pointed out in her write-up).
And then, November/December 1740, Voltaire in Berlin:
Voltaire: Non, malgré vos vertus, non, malgré vos appas, Mon âme n'est point satisfaite; Non, vous n'êtes qu'une coquette Qui subjuguez les cœurs, et ne vous donnez pas.
[Fritz demanding hearts but not giving his own! I have thoughts on that.]
Fritz: Réponse à l'épigramme de ce matin: Mon âme sent le prix de vos divins appas; Mais ne présumez point qu'elle soit satisfaite. Traître, vous me quittez pour suivre une coquette; Moi, je ne vous quitterais pas.
[Says he, who would have done a "gotta go conquer Silesia, BRB" two weeks later.]
Me: Well, that didn't take long. Guys, you haven't even spent two weeks in each other's company, calm down?
Voltaire: Je vous quitte, il est vrai; mais mon cœur déchiré Vers vous revolera sans cesse. Depuis quatre ans vous êtes ma maîtresse, Un amour de dix ans doit être préféré; Je remplis un devoir sacré. Héros de l'amitié, vous m'approuvez vous-même; Adieu, je pars désespéré. Oui, je vais aux genoux d'un objet adoré, Mais j'abandonne ce que j'aime.
Me: Okay then. There's not even a "like a" before mistress anymore now, I see how it is. (But yeah, Émilie, and Voltaire's feelings for her/her claim on him really are the continuous and strong point of contention.)
Also, editor's note on a Voltaire letter from July: "For four years they've wanted to embrace one another, for four years Voltaire has been hesitating to slip into the Prussian beau's heavenly bed. Does he know that sometimes love becomes difficult once one sees each other and grasps each other's hands daily?"
Me: Okay then, Pleschinski! Nobody forced you to phrase it that way I guess. [Yes, okay, he means canopy bed, I just translated too literally. But still.]
--
Other than their relationship troubles, I was very entertained by Voltaire's travel adventures, be it his descriptions of staying at a Prussian residence (?) in Den Haag - There are also books that only rats have read for fifty years, and which are covered with the largest cobwebs in Europe, lest ignorant people approach them. - or his reaction when, on the way to Berlin in November, his carriage breaks down in the middle of nowhere:
A servant goes to one side to ask for help from Westphalians who believe they are being asked to drink; another runs around without knowing where to. Du Molard however, who promises to describe our trip in Arabic and Syrian, is resourceful as if he were not a scholar. He goes to explore, half on foot, half in a cart, and I ride, in velvet breeches, silk stockings and slippers, on a restive horse. [...] On arriving at Herford in this state, the guard asked me my name; I replied, of course, that my name was Don Quixote, and I enter under this name.
And then, once again stuck in the middle of nowhere on his way back, he writes a lot of verses dissing Westphalia, praising Berlin, and then brings Algarotti into the conversation as a virtual third person to adress, just to start dissing Italy. (Quite lewdly, too, not least by using the accusation of sodomy as an insult - against the Venetians in this case - so that's certainly one more data point for his consistency in that regard, what with using it against Fritz later.)
--
Then it's wartime and there are two letters from 1742 that Pleschinski didn't include (possibly too much relationship back and forth) but which I found rather ... illuminating:
Voltaire (May 26th): [...] I don't like heroes much, they make too much noise; I hate these conquerors, proud enemies of themselves, Who in the horrors of fighting Have placed supreme happiness, Seeking death everywhere and making suffer A hundred thousand men, their fellows. The more their glory shines, the more hateful they are. O heaven! that I must hate you! I love you though, despite all this carnage With which you soiled the fields of our Germans, Despite all these warriors that your valiant hands Pass to the dark shore. You are a hero, but you are a sage; Your reason curses inhuman exploits Where you forced your courage; In the middle of the cannons, on the dead piled up, Facing death, and focussing victory, The blood of the unfortunates cementing your glory, I forgive you everything, if you moan.
I think of humanity, Sire, before thinking of you; but after having, as Abbe de Saint-Pierre, wept over the human race whose terror you become, I give myself up to all the joy that your glory gives me. This glory will be complete if V. M. forces the Queen of Hungary to receive peace, and the Germans to be happy. You are the hero of Germany and the arbiter of Europe; you will be the peacemaker, and our opera prologues will only be for you. [...] V. M. has not so far deigned to inform the world of the details of this day; you had, I believe, something else to do than relationships; but your modesty is betrayed by a few eyewitnesses, who all say that one owes the victory of the battle only to the excess of courage and prudence that you have shown. They add that my hero is always sensitive, and that the same man who has so many people killed is at the bedside of M. de Rottembourg. This is what you do not say, and which you could nevertheless confess, as things which are all natural to you. [...]
Fritz responds (June 18th): I hope that, after making my peace with the enemies, I can in turn make it with you. I ask for the Century of Louis XIV to seal it on your part, and I send you the report that I made myself of the last battle, as you ask me. Rottembourg's health begins to recover; it is entirely out of danger. Do not believe me cruel, but reasonable enough to choose an evil only when it is necessary to avoid a worse one. Any man who decides to have a tooth pulled out, when it is decayed, will fight when he wants to end a war. To spill blood under such circumstances is really to spare it; it is a bleeding given to a delirious enemy, and which gives him back his common sense.
... and then Voltaire writes his ode to MT, so more bickering.
Also: more Émilie bickering, because Fritz is still jealous. At first, the specifics confused me a bit - Fritz insinuates sex, Voltaire gets all huffy - but then I found the following in cahn's Émilie write-up:
Voltaire: I am too old for sexual relationships, being 47 and all, "the twilight of my days." [He lived to be 83.] Nay, I only want pure love unsullied by physical considerations. Émilie: I'm not really happy about this, but I love you, so, okay. D, who happens to be walking by at the moment: He means he doesn't want sex with her, huh? Voltaire: *has affair with niece* Émilie: ???? Voltaire: Uh, yeah, D was right. I meant I didn't want sex with you. Um. Open relationship?
Which I guess explains it. I certainly raised a very skeptical eyebrow when I read Voltaire's "I'm so old, I don't have sex anymore, my relationship with Émilie is all virtuous" claim. As did Fritz. Voltaire meanwhile is apparently still insulted that Fritz invited Gresset to Berlin and tells him "why don't you write to young and virile Gresset about his sex life instead (but of course, the guy wasn't man enough to follow your invitation now, was he) ... jealous, who, me? what?". Me: amused.
Reading more Fritz/Voltaire letters (1740-42)
So Fritz repeatedly voices thoughts like these, which are from his first letter on the topic, February 26th: Happy if I had lived without being transplanted/ From this mild and peaceful climate/ Where my freedom flourished/ Into this scabrous, rugged, difficult terrain,/ Infected by Machiavellianism!
And then from March 23rd: When I can neither read nor work, I am like those great tobacco takers who die of anxiety, and who put their hands in their pockets a thousand times, when their snuffbox has been taken away. The decoration of the building can change, without altering in any way the foundations or the walls; this is what you will see in me, because my father's situation leaves us no hope of recovery. So I must prepare to undergo my destiny.
Privacy would be better suited to my freedom [...]. You know that I like independence, and that it is very hard to give it up in order to submit to a painful duty.
Voltaire in return writes the "I dream of my prince like one dreams of a mistress" line in one of his later replies, and I thought his very first one to the February letter was actually quite touching, from I don't know the exact state of your current circumstances, but I've never loved and admired you more to king or prince, you are always my king. I mean, I'd read about a hundred pages of Voltaire complimenting Fritz by that point and these still stood out.
(Also, in between, May 3rd, Fritz tried to put a ring on it?! ;) - May my ring, my dear Voltaire, never leave your finger. This talisman is filled with so many wishes for your person, that it must of necessity bring you happiness)
Oh, and I thought the King vs. Human Fritz thing being introduced was interesting as a symptom of the transition and the relationship, started by Fritz telling Voltaire that he should keep treating him like a normal human being, not a king (later: Voltaire in Berlin -> Fritz: "that's totally not how I meant that"), upon which Voltaire starts alternating between calling him Your Majesty and Your Humanity for a while and keeps bringing up that differentiation in various contexts (including the one where he asks Fritz the human being about his father's attitude towards him before his death, which Fritz doesn't really answer, as
And then, November/December 1740, Voltaire in Berlin:
Voltaire:
Non, malgré vos vertus, non, malgré vos appas,
Mon âme n'est point satisfaite;
Non, vous n'êtes qu'une coquette
Qui subjuguez les cœurs, et ne vous donnez pas.
[Fritz demanding hearts but not giving his own! I have thoughts on that.]
Fritz:
Réponse à l'épigramme de ce matin:
Mon âme sent le prix de vos divins appas;
Mais ne présumez point qu'elle soit satisfaite.
Traître, vous me quittez pour suivre une coquette;
Moi, je ne vous quitterais pas.
[Says he, who would have done a "gotta go conquer Silesia, BRB" two weeks later.]
Me: Well, that didn't take long. Guys, you haven't even spent two weeks in each other's company, calm down?
Voltaire:
Je vous quitte, il est vrai; mais mon cœur déchiré
Vers vous revolera sans cesse.
Depuis quatre ans vous êtes ma maîtresse,
Un amour de dix ans doit être préféré;
Je remplis un devoir sacré.
Héros de l'amitié, vous m'approuvez vous-même;
Adieu, je pars désespéré.
Oui, je vais aux genoux d'un objet adoré,
Mais j'abandonne ce que j'aime.
Me: Okay then. There's not even a "like a" before mistress anymore now, I see how it is. (But yeah, Émilie, and Voltaire's feelings for her/her claim on him really are the continuous and strong point of contention.)
Also, editor's note on a Voltaire letter from July: "For four years they've wanted to embrace one another, for four years Voltaire has been hesitating to slip into the Prussian beau's heavenly bed. Does he know that sometimes love becomes difficult once one sees each other and grasps each other's hands daily?"
Me: Okay then, Pleschinski! Nobody forced you to phrase it that way I guess. [Yes, okay, he means canopy bed, I just translated too literally. But still.]
--
Other than their relationship troubles, I was very entertained by Voltaire's travel adventures, be it his descriptions of staying at a Prussian residence (?) in Den Haag - There are also books that only rats have read for fifty years, and which are covered with the largest cobwebs in Europe, lest ignorant people approach them. - or his reaction when, on the way to Berlin in November, his carriage breaks down in the middle of nowhere:
A servant goes to one side to ask for help from Westphalians who believe they are being asked to drink; another runs around without knowing where to. Du Molard however, who promises to describe our trip in Arabic and Syrian, is resourceful as if he were not a scholar. He goes to explore, half on foot, half in a cart, and I ride, in velvet breeches, silk stockings and slippers, on a restive horse. [...] On arriving at Herford in this state, the guard asked me my name; I replied, of course, that my name was Don Quixote, and I enter under this name.
And then, once again stuck in the middle of nowhere on his way back, he writes a lot of verses dissing Westphalia, praising Berlin, and then brings Algarotti into the conversation as a virtual third person to adress, just to start dissing Italy. (Quite lewdly, too, not least by using the accusation of sodomy as an insult - against the Venetians in this case - so that's certainly one more data point for his consistency in that regard, what with using it against Fritz later.)
--
Then it's wartime and there are two letters from 1742 that Pleschinski didn't include (possibly too much relationship back and forth) but which I found rather ... illuminating:
Voltaire (May 26th):
[...] I don't like heroes much, they make too much noise;
I hate these conquerors, proud enemies of themselves,
Who in the horrors of fighting
Have placed supreme happiness,
Seeking death everywhere and making suffer
A hundred thousand men, their fellows.
The more their glory shines, the more hateful they are.
O heaven! that I must hate you!
I love you though, despite all this carnage
With which you soiled the fields of our Germans,
Despite all these warriors that your valiant hands
Pass to the dark shore.
You are a hero, but you are a sage;
Your reason curses inhuman exploits
Where you forced your courage;
In the middle of the cannons, on the dead piled up,
Facing death, and focussing victory,
The blood of the unfortunates cementing your glory,
I forgive you everything, if you moan.
I think of humanity, Sire, before thinking of you; but after having, as Abbe de Saint-Pierre, wept over the human race whose terror you become, I give myself up to all the joy that your glory gives me. This glory will be complete if V. M. forces the Queen of Hungary to receive peace, and the Germans to be happy. You are the hero of Germany and the arbiter of Europe; you will be the peacemaker, and our opera prologues will only be for you.
[...] V. M. has not so far deigned to inform the world of the details of this day; you had, I believe, something else to do than relationships; but your modesty is betrayed by a few eyewitnesses, who all say that one owes the victory of the battle only to the excess of courage and prudence that you have shown. They add that my hero is always sensitive, and that the same man who has so many people killed is at the bedside of M. de Rottembourg. This is what you do not say, and which you could nevertheless confess, as things which are all natural to you. [...]
Fritz responds (June 18th):
I hope that, after making my peace with the enemies, I can in turn make it with you. I ask for the Century of Louis XIV to seal it on your part, and I send you the report that I made myself of the last battle, as you ask me.
Rottembourg's health begins to recover; it is entirely out of danger. Do not believe me cruel, but reasonable enough to choose an evil only when it is necessary to avoid a worse one. Any man who decides to have a tooth pulled out, when it is decayed, will fight when he wants to end a war. To spill blood under such circumstances is really to spare it; it is a bleeding given to a delirious enemy, and which gives him back his common sense.
... and then Voltaire writes his ode to MT, so more bickering.
Also: more Émilie bickering, because Fritz is still jealous. At first, the specifics confused me a bit - Fritz insinuates sex, Voltaire gets all huffy - but then I found the following in
Voltaire: I am too old for sexual relationships, being 47 and all, "the twilight of my days." [He lived to be 83.] Nay, I only want pure love unsullied by physical considerations.
Émilie: I'm not really happy about this, but I love you, so, okay.
D, who happens to be walking by at the moment: He means he doesn't want sex with her, huh?
Voltaire: *has affair with niece*
Émilie: ????
Voltaire: Uh, yeah, D was right. I meant I didn't want sex with you. Um. Open relationship?
Which I guess explains it. I certainly raised a very skeptical eyebrow when I read Voltaire's "I'm so old, I don't have sex anymore, my relationship with Émilie is all virtuous" claim. As did Fritz. Voltaire meanwhile is apparently still insulted that Fritz invited Gresset to Berlin and tells him "why don't you write to young and virile Gresset about his sex life instead (but of course, the guy wasn't man enough to follow your invitation now, was he) ... jealous, who, me? what?". Me: amused.