Yeah, as far as I can tell, even the banding together is all in the context of the Encyclopédie, i.e. all of them should stop working on it because some of them are getting in trouble for their contributions. Voltaire writes something similar to D'Alembert on the same day (previous letter at the link) and tells him that he'd asked Diderot to send back everything Voltaire had already written for it.
That said, browsing some of the surrounding letters, I am kind of wondering if the idea was floated by someone else in some way, or maybe earlier, because in his letter to Tressan on March 3rd, Voltaire writes:
Je vais planter aux Délices; de là je reviens à Lausanne pour nos spectacles; cela est plus sensé que d’aller en Allemagne, Je ne regrette aucun roi, aucun prince;
The "is more sensible than going to Germany" is an odd phrasing if somebody hadn't presented it as an option at some point, isn't it? ...or he's just commenting on his own history, who knows.
J’ai reçu depuis peu une lettre du cacouac roi de Prusse ; mais j’ai renoncé à lui comme à Paris, et je m’en trouve à merveille.
The German wiki article on the Encyclopédie says that Fritz offered to have it printed in Berlin and invited D'Alembert to do just that - unsourced and without a specific date attached, but I'd think that should have been years earlier?
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Re: Diderot and Catherine
Date: 2020-10-29 08:58 pm (UTC)That said, browsing some of the surrounding letters, I am kind of wondering if the idea was floated by someone else in some way, or maybe earlier, because in his letter to Tressan on March 3rd, Voltaire writes:
Je vais planter aux Délices; de là je reviens à Lausanne pour nos spectacles; cela est plus sensé que d’aller en Allemagne, Je ne regrette aucun roi, aucun prince;
The "is more sensible than going to Germany" is an odd phrasing if somebody hadn't presented it as an option at some point, isn't it? ...or he's just commenting on his own history, who knows.
To D'Alembert on March 7th:
Comptez qu’on ne vaut pas mieux à Berlin qu’à Paris, et qu’il n’y a de bon que la liberté.
and on March 25th:
J’ai reçu depuis peu une lettre du cacouac roi de Prusse ; mais j’ai renoncé à lui comme à Paris, et je m’en trouve à merveille.
The German wiki article on the Encyclopédie says that Fritz offered to have it printed in Berlin and invited D'Alembert to do just that - unsourced and without a specific date attached, but I'd think that should have been years earlier?