My translation says "but only under the condition she's to be different than her married sisters" (since Sophie is not yet married but soon will be
Oh, yes, okay. I read it differently because I forgot about the marriage happening only two weeks later, so out of context it came across as a present-day matter-of-fact condition, not a future one.
And you are right, the EC description isn't at Trier. (Which does however have a handkiss letter that isn't even in Volz? Pour ce qui s'agit du baisemain, je vous assure que je ne les lui ai pas baisées, ni ne les lui baiserai, car elles ne sont pas assez belles pour être appétissantes.) I really wish all the French originals were available to double-check things occasionally - there were a couple of lines where I wanted to look up the exact phrasing and found hardly any of the letters I was looking for. Except the moon one. :)
That means she met him before Fritz did. And had a very positive impression of him, too.
Ah, I thought so but wasn't completely sure. Nice little background detail for a later letter, too, where she's in Berlin and writes that Keith, Voltaire, and the Countess de Camas visited her.
Place your bets, though: would he have handed it over, if she asked nicely, or would at he very least a break-in have been necessary?
Hee, I could see arguments for both, what with Voltaire being put on the spot by someone he actually liked, but also having a talent for being weasely when necessary. Given that Fritz said he would sent someone to retrieve it, I'm also wondering who that might have been.
Re: Holes in the moon and magic castles, or: odds and ends in the Wilhelmine-Fritz correspondence
Date: 2020-11-07 01:44 pm (UTC)Oh, yes, okay. I read it differently because I forgot about the marriage happening only two weeks later, so out of context it came across as a present-day matter-of-fact condition, not a future one.
And you are right, the EC description isn't at Trier. (Which does however have a handkiss letter that isn't even in Volz? Pour ce qui s'agit du baisemain, je vous assure que je ne les lui ai pas baisées, ni ne les lui baiserai, car elles ne sont pas assez belles pour être appétissantes.) I really wish all the French originals were available to double-check things occasionally - there were a couple of lines where I wanted to look up the exact phrasing and found hardly any of the letters I was looking for. Except the moon one. :)
That means she met him before Fritz did. And had a very positive impression of him, too.
Ah, I thought so but wasn't completely sure. Nice little background detail for a later letter, too, where she's in Berlin and writes that Keith, Voltaire, and the Countess de Camas visited her.
Place your bets, though: would he have handed it over, if she asked nicely, or would at he very least a break-in have been necessary?
Hee, I could see arguments for both, what with Voltaire being put on the spot by someone he actually liked, but also having a talent for being weasely when necessary. Given that Fritz said he would sent someone to retrieve it, I'm also wondering who that might have been.