cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

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!)

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From:

selenak

so Oster had implied earlier that Wilhelmine knew about Marwitz' affair with her husband way back when? But when it all comes to a head it doesn't sound like she knew about it years before then, to me.

I think it's mostly guess work when exactly she found out, not least because Wilhelmine herself is inconsistent about it. In the memoirs, she says she had an inkling something was about to happen when the Margrave, recovering from his 1739/1740 illness, looked at Marwitz, not at her, but that might be hindsight. The ocntemporary letters to Fritz are of no use for the historian re: finding out when she knew, because she was invested in defending Marwitz to him. The letters to AW are more useful, not least because she confides in him about Marwitz before she confides in Fritz, but here she doesn't sound as if she's found out for good before Marwitz did the "you go and read your books, I'll take care of your husband and everything else" scene. Whereas Oster - and he's not alone there - does think she must have known already when setting up Marwitz with Burghaus, i.e. trying to marry her out of the country and removing her from Bayreuth thus in a face saving way.

(sie will Paris nicht verlassen, so wie ich Friedrich den Großen. I think I'd say "like I do for Frederick the Great"...? Also, what's the basket (einen Korb)?)

"Jemandem einen Korb geben" means saying no to someone. As for Voltaire's sentence, I'd translate it as: "Just as I don't want to leave Frederick the Great, she does not want to leave Paris" (to move to Bayreuth). At a guess, Madame de Graffigny had also learned her lesson from her time as the companion to FS' mother Elisabeth Charlotte. It's all very well to have a royal patron, but if for some reason they part with you, you're screwed and entirely dependent on your own means (if you have them). Being stranded in provincial Franconia, in a foreign country without any friends (save for those you'll manage to make) would be way worse than being stranded in Paris where she's managed to establish herself as both a writer and salon hostess.

Conversely, from Voltaire's pov, the whole thing looks different: he knew she direly needed the money and the financial security (despite her now having become a successful writer, due to the lack of modern copyright she was still paying off her brutal (ex) husband's debts by the end of her life) the position of court poet and companion to Wilhelmine could have provided, and he may also have felt guilty for just how badly things had ended up between her and Émilie, and he knew she had back then even tried to get a job at Fritz' court. According to a dissertation about Graffigny's which is online, in the opening chapter summarizing her life, it went thusly:

Graffigny was clearly excited and full of anticipation, in fact, she read Locke to prepare for her visit to Cirey. Moreover, she used the last of her remaining resources to buy a new dress for the occasion.19 Mme de Graffigny fully enjoyed the first part of her visit, describing it in the most idyllic terms. She described the décor and the events in the greatest detail, right down to the statue that was placed in a corner to hide the furnace. Art and literature were the topics of choice, except for one evening, when Graffigny brought everyone to tears by recounting her life story. On most occasions, everyone spent part of the day working in his or her room. Graffigny ploughed through some books she had been given rather than writing to Devaux so she could talk about them at dinner. Mme du Châtelet sang an opera one evening, and plays were staged periodically using the guests and neighbors as actors. Of course, Voltaire read everyone his unpublished works, including the controversial La Pucelle. Nevertheless, there was a latent current of tension in the household as Voltaire was furious with the Abbé Desfontaines for the latter’s published attack entitled La Voltairomanie ou Lettre d’un Jeune Avocat. Both Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet had copies, the existence of which they each tried to conceal from the other. In her efforts to protect Voltaire, Mme du Châtelet routinely sorted through the postbag.

One night, the pleasantness came to a sudden and grinding halt when Voltaire accused our epistolière of sending a copy of La Pucelle to Devaux and of having it printed. Mme du Châtelet, while censoring the mail thought she had found the proof in one of Devaux’s letters: “La Pucelle est charmante.” Without explanation Devaux was asked to return Graffigny’s letters; they eventually proved her innocence. She had merely given an account of the work to Devaux, but had not in fact sent a copy of the manuscript. Although Graffigny’s innocence was established, her pride had been hurt. Mme du Châtelet had said in the heat of the moment that she had only taken Graffigny in out of charity and in fact never liked her. Graffigny’s relationship with Mme du Châtelet remained troubled and, by extension, so did her relationship with Voltaire. The atmosphere at Cirey improved when Desmarest arrived to collect Mme de Graffigny. Finally, she dared write to Devaux telling him the story of the accusation to which she had been subjected. Nevertheless, she did not post the letter until she had definitively left Cirey.

(Graffigny secures a position as companion to the Duchesse de Richelieu, i.e. the wife of Voltaire's school friend and Émilie's ex lover, whom they both were still friends with.)

Mme de Graffigny’s path once again crossed that of Mme du Châtelet. And once again, the experience was not a pleasant one. Both women were still smoldering over the incident at Cirey. After all, things had been said that could not easily be forgiven. From Mme de Graffigny’s letters, it seems that she felt almost persecuted. First, Mme du Châtelet blamed Graffigny for having abandoned the duchess after a fireworks display. Several days later she implied that Graffigny had stolen a manuscript from Cirey and was showing it around Paris. She irritated Graffigny by joking with the duke about his extra marital affairs in front of his loving wife. Ironically, Mme du Châtelet used to have a liaison with the duke herself. The ladies even fought about where they sat at dinner or at the opera. According to English Showalter, these arguments, although seemingly petty, revolved around important questions of rank and privilege. Eventually, Mme de Graffigny even felt that Mme du Châtelet was at least partially responsible for the declaration Desmarest had made at Cirey that he no longer loved her. In the end, it is safe to say that Graffigny came to hate Mme du Châtelet. The last straw for Mme de Graffigny, following yet another run-in with Mme du Châtelet at the rehearsal of one of Voltaire’s plays, was the interdiction to accompany Mme de Richelieu to Languedoc. Mme du Châtelet went part way with the duchess before taking the road to Cirey while Mme de Graffigny stayed in Paris to baby sit the young duke de Fronsac, the son of the duke and the duchess. Mme de Graffigny kept in touch with Mme de Richelieu through her correspondence. While in Languedoc, the duchess gave birth to a little girl. The birth turned out to be difficult. The duchess lost a tremendous amount of blood and was greatly weakened. In the end, she returned to Paris to die. Graffigny remained close to her during the last days of her life. In her will, the duchess left Graffigny a small pension to be administered by the Guise family. It was paid sporadically, and eventually not at all. The death of the duchess left Graffigny in a precarious situation. Where would she go now? She was not as friendly with the duke de Richelieu as she had been with his wife. Nevertheless, for a brief period she remained in his service while she planned her next move. Not wishing to burn her bridges before having secured a position elsewhere, she kept her intentions and activities as discrete as possible.

Graffigny secretly hoped to secure a place with Frederic the Great in Prussia. After his father’s death, the Prussian monarch was reorganizing his court to include philosophers and academics. Maupertius, whom Graffigny had met at Cirey and affectionately called la Puce in her letters to Devaux, was one of the scholars successfully recruited by Frederic. In 1740, Maupertius was in Paris recruiting intellectuals to accompany him to Berlin. Graffigny also hoped to secure an invitation for Nicolas Liébault (le Chien), a struggling history professor at Lunéville. Liébault had been among Graffigny’s inner circle of friends while she lived in Lunéville. The two continued to correspond, either directly or through the intermediary of Panpan. In order to include Liébault in the Prussian expedition, a plan was devised according to which he would pose as Graffigny’s brother. The plan did not progress as smoothly as one would have hoped. The two argued about how to proceed. Above all, Graffigny did not want the duke of Richelieu to know that she was making arrangements to leave. In direct opposition to Graffigny’s wishes, Liébault made some contacts on his own who could have revealed Graffigny’s plan’s for departure to the duke of Richelieu. Graffigny was furious! No Prussian positions materialized.

Keeping all this in mind, I could see Voltaire trying to make amends by securing a good position at Wilhelmine's court for her. (But also her distrusting his offer in addition to having good reasons for her refusal.) Incidentally, since Graffigny died in the same year Wilhelmine did, in 1758, she would not have been left stranded in Franconia in the middle of the 7 Years War as a Frenchwoman, had she accepted, but in a longer life that would have been a true possibility, and so I guess it's a good thing she didn't accept.

Incidentally, the dissertation also informs me that the novel that made Graffigny's name as a writer, Peruvian Letters, sensationally did not end in marriage as the happily ever after. Using the device of a Peruvian woman coming to France and writing letters home to critique French society and customes, Graffigny even lets her heroine reject Christianity at the end as well as marriage to the handsome Frenchman who is in love with her. This caused as many as five unauthorized sequels being written in which the heroine gets duly married and baptized. (Just think of all the unauthorized Don Quixotte sequels published between part I and part II, or all the readers complaining to Louisa Alcott that Jo doesn't marry Laurie.) Graffigny remained firm and in each subsequent edition of her novel kept her ending intact, and she refused to write a sequel of her own as well.

The Voltaire Foundation has in recent yeas completed the 15 volumes edition of Graffigny's complete correspondance, which opens with a desparate letter her not even 20 years old self wrote to her father:

My dear father,

I am forced, in the dire plight where I find myself, to implore you not to abandon me and to have Mr de Rarecour come and get me as quickly as possible, for I am in great danger and am all shattered with blows. I throw myself at your mercy and ask you that this be done very soon. You have to say that others than I informed you, for everyone knows it. I am with much respect your most humble and obedient servant

F. d’Haponcour de Grafigny

It's good to know she managed to escape and eventually build herself a life, though depressing that things went so badly at Cirey and after. (As these incidents show Émilie's darker side, it's telling that the biographers dealt with them by vilifying and/or dismissing Graffigny.) On the bright side again, once she'd produced her bestseller, Graffigny makes contact with another part of our fandom:

She sent a number of short works to the former duke of Lorraine and his wife (now emperor and empress) at the court of Vienna for the edification of their children. Interestingly, one of the children was Marie-Antoinette who would eventually become queen of France. For her efforts, Graffigny received a small pension and was asked to write additional works to supplement the children’s education.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I think it's mostly guess work when exactly she found out, not least because Wilhelmine herself is inconsistent about it.

Yeah, I noticed this after reading volume 2 (which I read after Oster). Having suspicions but being in denial would account for a lot.

Thank you for the Graffigny write-up! There were so many fascinating people in the 18th century that I would have no idea about if not for salon. And yes, it is telling how many biographers have trouble when their faves are problematic.

From:

cahn

Yeah :( I mean, I know it's hard to accept one's fave is problematic, but isn't it more interesting that way? I'm glad Ziebura at least accepted that Heinrich et al had some dark sides.

From:

cahn

This is fascinating! Thank you!! And that makes total sense, that Voltaire may have looked at it rather differently than Graffigny herself, and also that it makes perfect sense for her not to have taken him up on it. I do like that it seems to imply that he didn't have any sort of hard feelings towards her, at least by that time (regardless what Émilie may have thought), and I like the headcanon that maybe he felt guilty about how it ended up.

Graffigny remained firm and in each subsequent edition of her novel kept her ending intact, and she refused to write a sequel of her own as well.

Okay, this is AWESOME.

This caused as many as five unauthorized sequels being written in which the heroine gets duly married and baptized.

LOLOLOLOL I love reading about historical fanfic! :D

That letter, though :( Somehow seeing the actual manuscript brings home even more how awful it was.