Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

[cahn]

Yuletide signups so far:
3 requests for Frederician RPF, 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 3 offers !! :D :D

(I am so curious as to who the third person is!)

Comments

Re: Diderot and Catherine

[selenak]

The Diderot biographer definitely seems to have gotten the wrong end of the stick there! And both LOL and aw at Voltaire's statements.

Again, sounds like he's saying not to go to Prussia (but is giving Fritz membership in the pack of scorned Enlightenment proponents, aww).

Not to mention: if he's given up on Fritz like he's given up on Paris, that means he's not given up at all. :) Not just because he'll return to Paris at the end of his life, but because, as Orieux notes, Voltaire had a habit of writing "we in Paris" years and years after he had left it, and at the time with no prospect of seeing it again. Orieux: "He is both the most cosmopolitan and the most Parisian" of French enlightenment writers, and his hometown formed part of who he was.

Re: Diderot and Catherine

[mildred_of_midgard]

Not to mention: if he's given up on Fritz like he's given up on Paris, that means he's not given up at all. :)

But we already knew that. :)

More seriously: "can't live with you, can't live without you" seems to describe his relationship to both.

Voltaire giving up on Fritz ... or not

[felis]

Not to mention: if he's given up on Fritz like he's given up on Paris, that means he's not given up at all. :)

Heh, yes! Some of these had quite the "I'm trying to convince myself" vibe.

And apropos giving him up, Darget apparently asked him how it happened that they are talking again, and Voltaire has this to say (January 8th, 1758):
You ask me, my dear and former companion from Potsdam, how Cinéas reconciled with Pyrrhus. It is, first, that Pyrrhus made an opera of my tragedy of Merope, and sent it to me [in 1756]; it is that afterwards he was kind enough to offer me his key, which is not that of paradise, and all his favors, which no longer suit my age; it is that one of his sisters, who has always preserved his kindness to me, has been the link of this small trade which is sometimes renewed between the hero-poet-philosopher-warrior-cunning/malicious-singular-brilliant-proud-modest, etc., and the Swiss Cinéas retired from the world.

Re: Voltaire giving up on Fritz ... or not

[mildred_of_midgard]

WOW these guys. It never ceases to amaze me as I watch them be madly in love with each other after the disillusionment and then divorce, and watch the mental gymnastics they both go through as they try to deal with their equally strong, equally conflicting feelings.

Made for each other, indeed.

Re: Voltaire giving up on Fritz ... or not

[selenak]

They really are an Albee-esque couple, these two: Fritz as Martha, Voltaire as George?

Anyway, that is a golden quote, and I love every word of it. The multiword description of Fritz most of all, but then the detail of the opera.

Re: Voltaire giving up on Fritz ... or not

[mildred_of_midgard]

The multiword description of Fritz most of all

Yes, that was amaaaazing. Voltaire's way with words is second to none.