Eh, Alexeji Orlov might have written in French, in which case you're good already. :) (Daskhova in her memoirs mentions she spoke Russian as a child and young woman about as well as Fritz and Wilhelmine spoke German.)
On a Voltairian note, while looking up quotes to type them again elsewhere I was reminded that Voltaire wrote the following to his other niece, Madame de Fontaine, i.e. not Madame Denis and hence presumably not part of the reworked correspondance:
Berlin, September 23rd, 1750: I wish I could sacrifice the King of Prussia for your benefit, but I can't. He's a King, but it's a sixteen-years-long passion that connects us; he's swept me away. I imagine nature has created me for him. Our taste is so eerily alike that I forgot he's master over half of Germany. And that the other half trembles in front of him, that he's won five battles and is the greatest general of Europe, that he's surrounded by six foot tall professional killers. All of this should have caused me to run a thousand miles in the other direction, but the philosopher in him has reconciled me with the monarch, and I have only found him to be a great man who is good and sociable.
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Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)
Date: 2020-11-01 06:47 pm (UTC)On a Voltairian note, while looking up quotes to type them again elsewhere I was reminded that Voltaire wrote the following to his other niece, Madame de Fontaine, i.e. not Madame Denis and hence presumably not part of the reworked correspondance:
Berlin, September 23rd, 1750: I wish I could sacrifice the King of Prussia for your benefit, but I can't. He's a King, but it's a sixteen-years-long passion that connects us; he's swept me away. I imagine nature has created me for him. Our taste is so eerily alike that I forgot he's master over half of Germany. And that the other half trembles in front of him, that he's won five battles and is the greatest general of Europe, that he's surrounded by six foot tall professional killers. All of this should have caused me to run a thousand miles in the other direction, but the philosopher in him has reconciled me with the monarch, and I have only found him to be a great man who is good and sociable.