I finally finished Orieux! (Actually a couple of weeks ago at this point, but it has taken me this long to sit down and write about it.) It was SO GOOD and near the end I could feel myself drawing it out a little so I wouldn't have to finish reading it. Orieux really gets that what I want out of history is well-thought-out-and-well-analyzed-and-well-sourced gossipy sensationalism delivered in anecdotal bite-sized chunks (of which selenak is the master, of course) -- but still with overriding themes and a through-line. And boy was Voltaire's life basically tailor-made to deliver that -- but Orieux also leaned into it for all it was worth.
I really loved how Orieux makes Voltaire come alive as someone who had so SO many faults (SO MANY, lol, the innumerable places where Orieux was all "...and here's yet another example where ANY ACTUAL GROWNUP would have LET IT GO, but did Voltaire? I will give you one guess.") but also at the same time so many amazing virtues, many of which were in some sense part and parcel with his flaws -- I mean, I guess it is old news to salon at this point (at least dating back to selenak reading Orieux and reporting back to us! Which, btw, thank you SO much, because that review is the reason why I read it) that the Voltaire who Could Not Let Things Go is the same Voltaire of the Calas affair, but it is really cool to see Orieux make those connections implicitly and explicitly.
It does make me wish that we got more biographies these days that were written as literature and where the biographers weren't afraid to have overt opinions. Orieux has Decided Opinions about everything and is not shy about owning it (and usually has evidence, though okay, sometimes is sloppy as selenak noted in her writeup), and it is GREAT. As opposed to, say, the Zinsser Émilie bio (of which more below), which had a Whole Lot of implicit opinions that she presents as "research," which is much drier without (as far as I can tell) being any more factually correct (and in fact probably less so, see below).
Unfortunately I wasn't taking good notes while reading, so I can't deliver the extremely long writeup that I would had I been taking notes, because every couple of pages or so I was like "omg I need to talk about this with salon, this is SO GREAT." Oh! but I did take a couple of notes on Émilie which I have now found, so here you go :D
-I am coming to the same conclusion about Zinsser's Emilie bio that selenak has already come to: to wit, that Zinsser employs bad faith to make Voltaire (and also Sainte-Lambert in some ways) come off as The Worst. I mean, there's no need for this; Voltaire as he comes across in Orieux is certainly full enough of vices that one need not also erase all his virtues. And in Orieux their relationship is, umm, extremely drama-filled, so you could still think they were better apart without Voltaire having to have been The Worst. (It's not clear to me that Orieux is unfair to her factually, although as selenak noted, for example, he doesn't seem to have any context for why her Newton work was actually extremely intellectually nontrivial.)
One difference between the Emilie bios and Orieux is that Emilie is portrayed in Orieux as much more of an inveterate gambler who loses money hand over fist. This occurs most strikingly in the incident where she loses money all day at which point Voltaire says, "Don't you realize you're playing with knaves?" and they both have to flee because you don't call the French court knaves :P In Orieux's telling (in which admittedly he is editorializing/romanticizing):
One evening, playing at the Queen's tables, she started to lose badly. The four hundred louis she had on her disappeared in a few moments; and she had not accumulated them without difficulty. Voltaire watched with mounting vexation; he hated wasting time and money in that way. Nevertheless he handed over to Emilie the two hundred louis he had in his pocket. They were swallowed up as quickly as the rest. He ventured a few remarks, but they were curtly rejected. So he resigned himself to dispatching a footman to borrow another two hundred louis at an exorbitant rate from a business acquaintance. But Mademoiselle du Thil, who had been of such help in stagemanaging the appearance of his emissaries at the Pope's palace, happened to be present, and she gladly lent a hundred and eighty louis. The divine algebrist flung them all down, but instead of multiplying they all disappeared. Voltaire begged her to withdraw from the game, but she only jumped down his throat again and went on playing, giving her word in place of stakes. Then the real disaster began. She lost eighty-four thousand livres, which with the nine hundred louis she had lost earlier made a hundred and three thousand livres. Madame du Châtelet was not a rich woman. Voltaire had been following what happened with the silent fury and clairvoyance of one who has foreseen all and been powerless to prevent it. He had seen her rush headlong to her ruin. As she made her last unlucky throw of the dice he could not contain himself any longer and said, in English, “Do you not see that you are playing with knaves?"
[Totally unrelated to my point, but I love the soubriquet "the divine algebraist" and need to find more excuses to use it :D Perhaps I shall start calling various math/tech people of my acquaintance "the divine geometer" and "the divine engineer" and so on.]
Whereas in Zinsser -- I am too lazy to go look it up, but I am pretty sure she spins this in a way that doesn't reflect badly on Emilie and reflects badly on Voltaire for calling everyone knaves by eliding a lot of this in-between material. I'm willing to believe it's in-between what Orieux and what Zinsser say, buuuuut I'm betting Orieux was actually drawing from his source (whatever it was) and that Zinsser just kind of glossed over all of that.
Also, just because this is bugging me: The part where I was most irritated by Voltaire in Zinsser is the bit where, after Emilie has a baby, Voltaire says "I [having completed a play] am more fatigued than she!" Well, Orieux says that Voltaire wrote to d'Argental, "Last night Madame du Châtelet, scribbling away at Newton, felt a slight call of Nature. She called a chambermaid, who only just had time to hold out her apron and catch a little daughter, whom she then carried off to cradle. Her mother put away her papers, and as I write this they are both sleeping as soundly as dormice."
Which... if it's part of the same letter that he said he was more fatigued than she was, he's clearly talking about how the birth was very easy, not about how it's All About Him and how tired he is. (I mean, this is Voltaire, it's kind of always all about him... but this strikes me as principally adorably sweet and relieved about Emilie.) And I am grumpy mostly at Zinsser for the bad faith reading, but also at myself for taking it on faith and not demanding context :P So, here I am asking for context! :D Are these both quotes from the same D'Argental letter? Is this letter available to denizens of salon??
-It's definitely cut from the version selenak read, bah, both small and large cuts. There were a couple of bits from selenak's writeup that I could not find in my English copy. I guess maybe someday I will have to read this in French (I don't think I can handle it in German, sorry).
-Also, there is a very weird typo in the English edition I have that systematically calls Fredersdorf "Fredendorff" (both in my hard copy and in the one mildred sent, and including the index!) which confused me no end when I first read it ("Fritz has this secretary Fredendorff that I've never heard of before?") but fortunately selenak's writeup included talking about the Frankfurt affair (the only place where "Fredendorff" shows up) and that made it clear. But also kind of hilarious to me :)
-I must admit that though I was riveted almost the entire time, there were bits where Orieux goes on about various visitors Voltaire had (especially in his later years) where I was, okay, kinda bored :)
-Wow, Orieux reeeeeally does not like Madame Denis. I feel like I cannot at all analyze whether/how much this is justified. I can see that in the stories Orieux tells there is room for a Madame Denis (as selenak said somewhere else in salon) who is more interesting and nuanced than the greedy buffoon that he thinks she is, but it seems a bit harder for me to argue with, e.g., Madame Denis and Voltaire's last days -- ? Would love to get some insight on this from you rigorous critical thinker types <3
-Guy Endore (*) wrote a historical novel called Voltaire! Voltaire! that's actually (as far as I can tell) about Rousseau, and after reading this I can see why! They seem to have clashed rather a lot. So... that is moving right up on my reading list.
(*) He wrote King of Paris, a historical novel (well, if you can call it that... it's written in the style of a biography but one that takes extreme novelistic liberties and novelistic theme/plot -- in fact, now that I think about it, it has a lot in common with Orieux' writing, but decidedly landing on the fiction side rather than the biography side) about Alexandre Dumas pere et fils that is still my favorite book that Awesome French Teacher lent me and that I really highly recommend, though it's out of print now.
-But next on my list is the Arianrhod, which I have started! (She does seem to portray Emilie as between Orieux and Zinsser.)
Edited (Sorry about that, Calas family!) Date: 2021-04-10 05:35 am (UTC)
To start with the end, re: Voltaire's death - this account, which discusses the various versions and legends, seems to be the most reliable to me I've read so far. It's in German, but you can employ that automatically translating google fu, right?
To go back to the beginning: yay for your review! I'm so glad you liked Orieux as much as I did, Opinions and all. And I'm doubly glad a French friend of mine recced it to me after reading my Voltaire & Fritz story.
I really loved how Orieux makes Voltaire come alive as someone who had so SO many faults (SO MANY, lol, the innumerable places where Orieux was all "...and here's yet another example where ANY ACTUAL GROWNUP would have LET IT GO, but did Voltaire? I will give you one guess.") but also at the same time so many amazing virtues, many of which were in some sense part and parcel with his flaws
Indeed, that's one sterling quality of this book, and such a tricky balance for a biographer to keep. (I mean, leaving aside biographies of people like Hitler and Stalin.) Usually they tend to either err in the bashing or in the blending out of vices direction, if they aren't so afraid of romantisizing that they're so ultra dry so they can't be possibly accused of being entertaining. But Orieux, as you say, shows flaws and virtues are directly interconnected, and if you disregard one, you're missing out on the completeness of the character.
Orieux on Émilie: I didn't have the impression that he's factually incorrect, either; that he does not offer the context as to why her work is so important is a minus, but as he actually likes her a lot (this is also a Decided Opinion of his, see Orieux stating that Émilie was worth ten of Parisian gossips like Madame Deffand, or, during the 1743 crisis when Voltaire is holidaying with Fritz in Prussia, that between the two of them - Voltaire and Émilie, not Fritz and Émilie - she was the more committed lover), I didn't see it as an intended slight, and more of a male biographer of his time kind of thing.
Émilie's gambling and the "knaves" incident: I think Orieux' description is actually based on a Voltaire letter to a friend directly after the event itself (though I could be wrong). Incidentally, Émilie letting gambling get away with her on that occasion (and earlier) at a point when she was unhappy reminds me that Ada Lovelace also thought she could use her gift as a mathematician for gambling in order to make money so she and Babbage could continue to work on his machine (i.e. the computer), and instead ended up addicted to gambling and losing huge sums. In the case of the Versailles incident, though, I think an additional factor was that Voltaire calling Émilie's opponents "knaves" certainly carries the implication that he thinks they're cheating, and for a commoner to accuse noblemen (and -women) of cheating is certainly a potential case of HOW DARE YOU INTO THE BASTILLE WITH YOU! Still, as I recall (book's back in the library since half a year or more) Zinsser's biography definitely slants opinion by putting the emphasis on this and leaving out Émilie had lost huge, huge sums at this point.
Sidenote: one thing I love about the entire incident is the reminder that Voltaire and Émilie talked English with each other when either not wanting to be understood by the other people around them (only in this case they were) or by being in an intense mood. In Lauren Gunderson's play, she has Émilie tell the audience re: Voltaire "luckily for you, we always argue in English, so you'll understand everything we say."
Which... if it's part of the same letter that he said he was more fatigued than she was, he's clearly talking about how the birth was very easy, not about how it's All About Him and how tired he is. (I mean, this is Voltaire, it's kind of always all about him... but this strikes me as principally adorably sweet and relieved about Emilie.)
I only know excerpts from biographies, not having access to the Enlightenment website which presumably has the entire letter, so I can't tell whether it's the same letter or not. However, given the few days that passed between Émilie giving birth and her sudden turn for the worse and death, I doubt Voltaire wrote to D'Argental twice in those few days. In any event, since Voltaire had been massively worried about Émilie giving birth this relatively late (for the era especially) in her life - see his reply to Fritz' "you're neither a midwife nor the dad, so why do you need to stick around for the birth at all, come to meeeeee!" letter - and since I had read the more complete description of her giving birth that you quote, I always took the "I had more problems with my play" as a joke in the same spirit of giddy relief. Yes, he was a massive egotist and hypochondriac. But he also had been (justifiably) very worried and now it looked like Émilie was fine, so adding a relieved joke like this to his description of her having given birth would come naturally to him. But Zinsser, who even sees in the front piece of Voltaire's Newton book dedicated to Émilie and written in the early part of their romance a kind of subtextual insult, of course saw it another way.
there is a very weird typo in the English edition I have that systematically calls Fredersdorf "Fredendorff"
LOL. I have a spontaneous theory about this which of course I can't verify without counterchecking Orieux' original French edition. Because consider this:
- in his memoirs, pamphlets and letters, Voltaire keeps misspelling Fredersdorf's name (Mildred listed a couple of versions in her original Voltaire write up, I think)
- in his massive bibliography, Orieux doesn't list a Fritz biography that's not a "Fritz and...." type of book or essay, i.e. "Fritz and Louis XV", "Fritz and Voltaire", "Fritz and French Enlightenment" etc. There is no "Life and times of Fritz" biography in it.
- studies with these subjects aren't likely to mention Fredersdorf, except for the "Fritz and Voltaire" ones, and of those only ones specializing in the Frankfurt episode
=> Conclusion: Orieux might not have known himself how Frederdorf's name was spelled, and gave a wrong version in his book, which the English translator promptly used as well. Whereas the German translator either counterchecked or actually knew some stuff about Fritz beforehand, including the correct version of Fredersdorf's name.
(Backup for this theory: in the German version of Voltaire's memoirs, Fredersdorf's name is spelled correctly all the way through, very much as opposed to the original French or the English translation.)
Guy Endore: I've read both King of Paris (which, like you, I love) and Voltaire!Voltaire!, which is indeed about Rousseau, and while predating Amadeus for decades, it basically interprets him feeling vis a vis Voltaire as Shaffer's Salieri does towards Mozart. It's entertaining and quite readable, but whereas the Dumas novel offers the relationship between both Alexandres (and arguably Catherine the mother of Dumas fils - I thought Endore did a great job making her a character in her own right) as emotional hooks, and makes Alexandre Dumas the Musketeer author such a larger than life personality, Voltaire! Voltaire! suffers from minimal actual Voltaire in it (he looms large in Rousseau's thoughts, of course, but the man himself hardly shows up), and Rousseau's neuroses and paranoia and increasing misery not being as good company.
So, here I am asking for context! :D Are these both quotes from the same D'Argental letter? Is this letter available to denizens of salon??
//
I always took the "I had more problems with my play" as a joke in the same spirit of giddy relief
Yeah, I agree, very much reads like a relieved joke and like he admires Emilie for it. But also, a joke he reused, as there are three Voltaire letters from September 4th, which all contain a smiliar description of the birth: the one to d'Argental, with the quote from Cahn's write-up, which is followed by It will be more difficult for me to give birth to my Catilina; one to the Abbé de Voisenon, which tells the same story about the birth and expands a bit on his own work (During the last days of her pregnancy, I did not know what to do, so I began to have a child on my own; I gave birth in eight days to Catilina. [...] I am amazed/delighted [émerveillé] by Madame du Chatelet's childbed, and terrified by mine.); and finally, one to d'Argenson, which has the fatigued quote. It's written in the same vein and context, but it has a more noticable "having kids = way easier than writing books" slant towards the end, so if you only read this one, you might get the wrong impression:
Mme du Châtelet vous mande, monsieur, que cette nuit, étant à son secrétaire, et griffonnant quelque pancarte newtonienne, elle a eu un petit besoin. Ce petit besoin était une fille qui a paru sur-le-champ. On l’a étendue sur un livre de géométrie in-4°. La mère est allée se coucher, parce qu’il faut bien se coucher ; et, si elle ne dormait pas, elle vous écrirait. Pour moi, qui ai accouché d’une tragédie de Catilina, je suis cent fois plus fatigué qu’elle. Elle n’a mis au monde qu’une petite fille qui ne dit mot, et moi il m’a fallu faire un Cicéron, un César ; et il est plus difficile de faire parler ces gens-là que de faire des enfants, surtout quand on ne veut pas faire un second affront à l’ancienne Rome et au théâtre français.
... and then his letters are all sadness only six days later. :((
Speaking of his letters, though, is there a date for the "knaves" incident? Might be worth checking if the French wiki also has the letter in which he talks about it.
Knaves date: over to cahn, I don't have the Voltaire biography with me right now.
Thank you for providing all three letters! BTW, this reminds me of Lady Mary's biographer pointing out that the "Embassy" letters as they were published, while being based on her diaries and some actual letters, were of course a literary creation (same for Algarotti's "Letters from Russia" and for Bielfeld's Letters), because rl letters, like Voltaire's here, repeat information (and sometimes descriptions and jokes) for different correspondents, whereas these published "Letters" books are offering a progressing narrative which never does that. Given that shared friends like the D'Argentals must have been concerned for Émilie, too, and awaiting the news about her giving birth urgently, I'm not surprised he wrote to three different people the same day with the same basic letters set up.
It's written in the same vein and context, but it has a more noticable "having kids = way easier than writing books" slant towards the end, so if you only read this one, you might get the wrong impression:
True, but I'm assumung Zinnsser would have read all Voltaire letters referring to Émilie as part of her research, especially all written in the month of her death, so she did know the context. Let's face it, scholars setting out to prove a theory will who then end up only quoting what they think supports that theory and ignoring everything else are more common than not....
Oh, yeah, I didn't mean to say that Zinsser wouldn't have known the context or didn't pick and choose what suited her best; it was more a general observation.
Aw, that's too bad. They are written from Sceaux, at least: Orieux says that as fallout from the "knave" incident that he and Emilie had to flee, and that he took refuge with the Duchesse du Maine at Sceaux, and spent more than two months there -- and then by February 1748 Emilie had smoothed things over and "he could show himself in public again."
:DD Okay, what I wanted to say last night but didn't have the time: SALON IS THE BEST. I love how I can just be like "so... random Voltaire letter?" and I get both the literary analysis and THREE detective-found letters! :D Thank you!!
Heh, yeah, that third letter if I had read out of context and only that letter, I might have formed a rather less good opinion of Voltaire :P And in all three letters it is definitely all about him too, but I expect no less from Voltaire :) and as you both say, it is clearly meant as a relieved joke and that he admires Emilie a lot! Gah, Zinsser :P
Voltaire's death: Huh! I cross-referenced it with Orieux and I guess that (although Orieux has a number of choice words for Mme Denis), the only thing Mme Denis actually did that I found super objectionable was not being with Voltaire as he was dying... but it sounds like it was actually Voltaire who didn't want her there (though she did seem to hide Voltaire's and Wagniere's letters from each other, which... wasn't great, though I see how Voltaire changing his will would have been pretty awful for her).
Usually they tend to either err in the bashing or in the blending out of vices direction, if they aren't so afraid of romantisizing that they're so ultra dry so they can't be possibly accused of being entertaining.
Yes!! I love that Orieux can hold the virtues and vices in his head at the same time, and it's honestly a lot more interesting that way (as I keep saying negatively about other biographies :P )
when Voltaire is holidaying with Fritz in Prussia, that between the two of them - Voltaire and Émilie, not Fritz and Émilie - she was the more committed lover
My reaction: ...but Fritz certainly can't quit Voltaire, dunno if that counts as committed... :D
an additional factor was that Voltaire calling Émilie's opponents "knaves" certainly carries the implication that he thinks they're cheating, and for a commoner to accuse noblemen (and -women) of cheating is certainly a potential case of HOW DARE YOU INTO THE BASTILLE WITH YOU!
Oh, yeah, I definitely got that implication from both the Orieux and the Zinsser (though it was a bit more subtle in Orieux and for that I was glad I'd read Zinsser first). But I did not remember from Zinsser that she'd lost large sums -- was it Zinsser or Bodaris who made her sound like a super card shark?
=> Conclusion: Orieux might not have known himself how Frederdorf's name was spelled, and gave a wrong version in his book, which the English translator promptly used as well. Whereas the German translator either counterchecked or actually knew some stuff about Fritz beforehand, including the correct version of Fredersdorf's name.
(Backup for this theory: in the German version of Voltaire's memoirs, Fredersdorf's name is spelled correctly all the way through, very much as opposed to the original French or the English translation.)
! Well, that makes total sense if the original French is also misspelled! Hee. I am thinking that if mildred ever tackles French, I should ask her to make me a copy to read it in French (though there's no way I could keep up with her in French, I wouldn't even have been able to keep up with her at my English reading pace!)
ahhhhhh you are perhaps the first person I have ever met (over the internet or otherwise) besides Awesome French Teacher who has read King of Paris, and I love that you also love it! :D I love that book so much, and like you say I love that Catherine gets to be her own character too <3 (also: Poor Catherine!) I'm sorry to hear Voltaire! Voltaire! isn't as entertaining, sigh. I might still read it to get his take on Rousseau, but I won't go into it with super-high expectations, which is probably a good thing :)
Madame Denis: Yes to both, i.e. hiding letters because she was afraid Voltaire might change his will wasn't good, and he was rightfully angry about it, but at the same time, if he had disinherited her she'd have been without income, and the chances for a middle-aged woman without money to support herself in that era were pretty thin. Also, given that one of the last things he said before dying was asking someone to take care of her, he seems to have forgiven her.
My reaction: ...but Fritz certainly can't quit Voltaire, dunno if that counts as committed...
To be sure, but like I said, Orieux' point was that Voltaire wasn't as committed to Émilie as she was to him in 1743!
was it Zinsser or Bodaris who made her sound like a super card shark?
Bodanis! Though to be fair, he says this of Émilie in her early 20s, before she ever met Voltaire, as a way to finance books. And she may have been a good player early on when her opponents weren't Versailles nobility knowing all the tricks.
ahhhhhh you are perhaps the first person I have ever met (over the internet or otherwise) besides Awesome French Teacher who has read King of Paris, and I love that you also love it!
Us and Orson Welles, who at times wanted to do a film version and of course toyed with the idea of playing at least one of the Alexandres himself. Which, no, Orson. Sure, you could have done a great job, acting-wise, but any member of the Dumas clan other than Catherine needs to be played by a POC actor, and you, Orson, were one of the few people in the film and theatre world of your era who actually worked with POC actors in main roles (see all-black Macbeth, see Faustus with black Mephisto and Helen of Troy) and you did a lot of work with the NACP, so you should have known.
The King of Paris is also why I was thrilled when in the BBC Musketeers series, which had little actual Dumas content left in it but which did have its charms, Porthos was cast with a poc actor and this was not treated as raceblind casting; Porthos' mother in this version was a slave, and slavery comes up now and then in the series. I thought that was a neat nod towards the author, and it was fitting that it was Porthos who personality wise fits with Alexandre père as presented by Guy Endore.
also: Poor Catherine!
No kidding. Endore made the unfairness of Alexandre being the fun parent and overworked Catherine being stuck with the role of strict parent palpable, and it's a good thing that finally, Alexandre fils learns to appreciate her.
To be sure, but like I said, Orieux' point was that Voltaire wasn't as committed to Émilie as she was to him in 1743!
Ah, yes, I totally misparsed that! Thanks :)
And she may have been a good player early on when her opponents weren't Versailles nobility knowing all the tricks.
That... makes a lot of sense.
Us and Orson Welles, who at times wanted to do a film version
Oh! You know, I can really understand wanting to do a film version (which would be fantastic!) and I also kind of understand wanting to play one of the Alexandres (because those would be fantastic roles), but yeah. By which I mean: no. That is very cool about Porthos, though!
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timeasmymeasure
My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-10 05:20 am (UTC)I really loved how Orieux makes Voltaire come alive as someone who had so SO many faults (SO MANY, lol, the innumerable places where Orieux was all "...and here's yet another example where ANY ACTUAL GROWNUP would have LET IT GO, but did Voltaire? I will give you one guess.") but also at the same time so many amazing virtues, many of which were in some sense part and parcel with his flaws -- I mean, I guess it is old news to salon at this point (at least dating back to selenak reading Orieux and reporting back to us! Which, btw, thank you SO much, because that review is the reason why I read it) that the Voltaire who Could Not Let Things Go is the same Voltaire of the Calas affair, but it is really cool to see Orieux make those connections implicitly and explicitly.
It does make me wish that we got more biographies these days that were written as literature and where the biographers weren't afraid to have overt opinions. Orieux has Decided Opinions about everything and is not shy about owning it (and usually has evidence, though okay, sometimes is sloppy as selenak noted in her writeup), and it is GREAT. As opposed to, say, the Zinsser Émilie bio (of which more below), which had a Whole Lot of implicit opinions that she presents as "research," which is much drier without (as far as I can tell) being any more factually correct (and in fact probably less so, see below).
Unfortunately I wasn't taking good notes while reading, so I can't deliver the extremely long writeup that I would had I been taking notes, because every couple of pages or so I was like "omg I need to talk about this with salon, this is SO GREAT." Oh! but I did take a couple of notes on Émilie which I have now found, so here you go :D
-I am coming to the same conclusion about Zinsser's Emilie bio that
One difference between the Emilie bios and Orieux is that Emilie is portrayed in Orieux as much more of an inveterate gambler who loses money hand over fist. This occurs most strikingly in the incident where she loses money all day at which point Voltaire says, "Don't you realize you're playing with knaves?" and they both have to flee because you don't call the French court knaves :P In Orieux's telling (in which admittedly he is editorializing/romanticizing):
One evening, playing at the Queen's tables, she started to lose badly. The four hundred louis she had on her disappeared in a few moments; and she had not accumulated them without difficulty. Voltaire watched with mounting vexation; he hated wasting time and money in that way. Nevertheless he handed over to Emilie the two hundred louis he had in his pocket. They were swallowed up as quickly as the rest. He ventured a few remarks, but they were curtly rejected. So he resigned himself to dispatching a footman to borrow another two hundred louis at an exorbitant rate from a business acquaintance. But Mademoiselle du Thil, who had been of such help in stagemanaging the appearance of his emissaries at the Pope's palace, happened to be present, and she gladly lent a hundred and eighty louis. The divine algebrist flung them all down, but instead of multiplying they all disappeared. Voltaire begged her to withdraw from the game, but she only jumped down his throat again and went on playing, giving her word in place of stakes. Then the real disaster began. She lost eighty-four thousand livres, which with the nine hundred louis she had lost earlier made a hundred and three thousand livres. Madame du Châtelet was not a rich woman. Voltaire had been following what happened with the silent fury and clairvoyance of one who has foreseen all and been powerless to prevent it. He had seen her rush headlong to her ruin. As she made her last unlucky throw of the dice he could not contain himself any longer and said, in English, “Do you not see that you are playing with knaves?"
[Totally unrelated to my point, but I love the soubriquet "the divine algebraist" and need to find more excuses to use it :D Perhaps I shall start calling various math/tech people of my acquaintance "the divine geometer" and "the divine engineer" and so on.]
Whereas in Zinsser -- I am too lazy to go look it up, but I am pretty sure she spins this in a way that doesn't reflect badly on Emilie and reflects badly on Voltaire for calling everyone knaves by eliding a lot of this in-between material. I'm willing to believe it's in-between what Orieux and what Zinsser say, buuuuut I'm betting Orieux was actually drawing from his source (whatever it was) and that Zinsser just kind of glossed over all of that.
Also, just because this is bugging me: The part where I was most irritated by Voltaire in Zinsser is the bit where, after Emilie has a baby, Voltaire says "I [having completed a play] am more fatigued than she!" Well, Orieux says that Voltaire wrote to d'Argental, "Last night Madame du Châtelet, scribbling away at Newton, felt a slight call of Nature. She called a chambermaid, who only just had time to hold out her apron and catch a little daughter, whom she then carried off to cradle. Her mother put away her papers, and as I write this they are both sleeping as soundly as dormice."
Which... if it's part of the same letter that he said he was more fatigued than she was, he's clearly talking about how the birth was very easy, not about how it's All About Him and how tired he is. (I mean, this is Voltaire, it's kind of always all about him... but this strikes me as principally adorably sweet and relieved about Emilie.) And I am grumpy mostly at Zinsser for the bad faith reading, but also at myself for taking it on faith and not demanding context :P So, here I am asking for context! :D Are these both quotes from the same D'Argental letter? Is this letter available to denizens of salon??
-It's definitely cut from the version
-Also, there is a very weird typo in the English edition I have that systematically calls Fredersdorf "Fredendorff" (both in my hard copy and in the one mildred sent, and including the index!) which confused me no end when I first read it ("Fritz has this secretary Fredendorff that I've never heard of before?") but fortunately selenak's writeup included talking about the Frankfurt affair (the only place where "Fredendorff" shows up) and that made it clear. But also kind of hilarious to me :)
-I must admit that though I was riveted almost the entire time, there were bits where Orieux goes on about various visitors Voltaire had (especially in his later years) where I was, okay, kinda bored :)
-Wow, Orieux reeeeeally does not like Madame Denis. I feel like I cannot at all analyze whether/how much this is justified. I can see that in the stories Orieux tells there is room for a Madame Denis (as selenak said somewhere else in salon) who is more interesting and nuanced than the greedy buffoon that he thinks she is, but it seems a bit harder for me to argue with, e.g., Madame Denis and Voltaire's last days -- ? Would love to get some insight on this from you rigorous critical thinker types <3
-Guy Endore (*) wrote a historical novel called Voltaire! Voltaire! that's actually (as far as I can tell) about Rousseau, and after reading this I can see why! They seem to have clashed rather a lot. So... that is moving right up on my reading list.
(*) He wrote King of Paris, a historical novel (well, if you can call it that... it's written in the style of a biography but one that takes extreme novelistic liberties and novelistic theme/plot -- in fact, now that I think about it, it has a lot in common with Orieux' writing, but decidedly landing on the fiction side rather than the biography side) about Alexandre Dumas pere et fils that is still my favorite book that Awesome French Teacher lent me and that I really highly recommend, though it's out of print now.
-But next on my list is the Arianrhod, which I have started! (She does seem to portray Emilie as between Orieux and Zinsser.)
Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-10 07:10 am (UTC)To go back to the beginning: yay for your review! I'm so glad you liked Orieux as much as I did, Opinions and all. And I'm doubly glad a French friend of mine recced it to me after reading my Voltaire & Fritz story.
I really loved how Orieux makes Voltaire come alive as someone who had so SO many faults (SO MANY, lol, the innumerable places where Orieux was all "...and here's yet another example where ANY ACTUAL GROWNUP would have LET IT GO, but did Voltaire? I will give you one guess.") but also at the same time so many amazing virtues, many of which were in some sense part and parcel with his flaws
Indeed, that's one sterling quality of this book, and such a tricky balance for a biographer to keep. (I mean, leaving aside biographies of people like Hitler and Stalin.) Usually they tend to either err in the bashing or in the blending out of vices direction, if they aren't so afraid of romantisizing that they're so ultra dry so they can't be possibly accused of being entertaining. But Orieux, as you say, shows flaws and virtues are directly interconnected, and if you disregard one, you're missing out on the completeness of the character.
Orieux on Émilie: I didn't have the impression that he's factually incorrect, either; that he does not offer the context as to why her work is so important is a minus, but as he actually likes her a lot (this is also a Decided Opinion of his, see Orieux stating that Émilie was worth ten of Parisian gossips like Madame Deffand, or, during the 1743 crisis when Voltaire is holidaying with Fritz in Prussia, that between the two of them - Voltaire and Émilie, not Fritz and Émilie - she was the more committed lover), I didn't see it as an intended slight, and more of a male biographer of his time kind of thing.
Émilie's gambling and the "knaves" incident: I think Orieux' description is actually based on a Voltaire letter to a friend directly after the event itself (though I could be wrong). Incidentally, Émilie letting gambling get away with her on that occasion (and earlier) at a point when she was unhappy reminds me that Ada Lovelace also thought she could use her gift as a mathematician for gambling in order to make money so she and Babbage could continue to work on his machine (i.e. the computer), and instead ended up addicted to gambling and losing huge sums. In the case of the Versailles incident, though, I think an additional factor was that Voltaire calling Émilie's opponents "knaves" certainly carries the implication that he thinks they're cheating, and for a commoner to accuse noblemen (and -women) of cheating is certainly a potential case of HOW DARE YOU INTO THE BASTILLE WITH YOU! Still, as I recall (book's back in the library since half a year or more) Zinsser's biography definitely slants opinion by putting the emphasis on this and leaving out Émilie had lost huge, huge sums at this point.
Sidenote: one thing I love about the entire incident is the reminder that Voltaire and Émilie talked English with each other when either not wanting to be understood by the other people around them (only in this case they were) or by being in an intense mood. In Lauren Gunderson's play, she has Émilie tell the audience re: Voltaire "luckily for you, we always argue in English, so you'll understand everything we say."
Which... if it's part of the same letter that he said he was more fatigued than she was, he's clearly talking about how the birth was very easy, not about how it's All About Him and how tired he is. (I mean, this is Voltaire, it's kind of always all about him... but this strikes me as principally adorably sweet and relieved about Emilie.)
I only know excerpts from biographies, not having access to the Enlightenment website which presumably has the entire letter, so I can't tell whether it's the same letter or not. However, given the few days that passed between Émilie giving birth and her sudden turn for the worse and death, I doubt Voltaire wrote to D'Argental twice in those few days. In any event, since Voltaire had been massively worried about Émilie giving birth this relatively late (for the era especially) in her life - see his reply to Fritz' "you're neither a midwife nor the dad, so why do you need to stick around for the birth at all, come to meeeeee!" letter - and since I had read the more complete description of her giving birth that you quote, I always took the "I had more problems with my play" as a joke in the same spirit of giddy relief. Yes, he was a massive egotist and hypochondriac. But he also had been (justifiably) very worried and now it looked like Émilie was fine, so adding a relieved joke like this to his description of her having given birth would come naturally to him. But Zinsser, who even sees in the front piece of Voltaire's Newton book dedicated to Émilie and written in the early part of their romance a kind of subtextual insult, of course saw it another way.
there is a very weird typo in the English edition I have that systematically calls Fredersdorf "Fredendorff"
LOL. I have a spontaneous theory about this which of course I can't verify without counterchecking Orieux' original French edition. Because consider this:
- in his memoirs, pamphlets and letters, Voltaire keeps misspelling Fredersdorf's name (Mildred listed a couple of versions in her original Voltaire write up, I think)
- in his massive bibliography, Orieux doesn't list a Fritz biography that's not a "Fritz and...." type of book or essay, i.e. "Fritz and Louis XV", "Fritz and Voltaire", "Fritz and French Enlightenment" etc. There is no "Life and times of Fritz" biography in it.
- studies with these subjects aren't likely to mention Fredersdorf, except for the "Fritz and Voltaire" ones, and of those only ones specializing in the Frankfurt episode
=> Conclusion: Orieux might not have known himself how Frederdorf's name was spelled, and gave a wrong version in his book, which the English translator promptly used as well. Whereas the German translator either counterchecked or actually knew some stuff about Fritz beforehand, including the correct version of Fredersdorf's name.
(Backup for this theory: in the German version of Voltaire's memoirs, Fredersdorf's name is spelled correctly all the way through, very much as opposed to the original French or the English translation.)
Guy Endore: I've read both King of Paris (which, like you, I love) and Voltaire!Voltaire!,
which is indeed about Rousseau, and while predating Amadeus for decades, it basically interprets him feeling vis a vis Voltaire as Shaffer's Salieri does towards Mozart. It's entertaining and quite readable, but whereas the Dumas novel offers the relationship between both Alexandres (and arguably Catherine the mother of Dumas fils - I thought Endore did a great job making her a character in her own right) as emotional hooks, and makes Alexandre Dumas the Musketeer author such a larger than life personality, Voltaire! Voltaire! suffers from minimal actual Voltaire in it (he looms large in Rousseau's thoughts, of course, but the man himself hardly shows up), and Rousseau's neuroses and paranoia and increasing misery not being as good company.
Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-10 08:09 pm (UTC)//
I always took the "I had more problems with my play" as a joke in the same spirit of giddy relief
Yeah, I agree, very much reads like a relieved joke and like he admires Emilie for it. But also, a joke he reused, as there are three Voltaire letters from September 4th, which all contain a smiliar description of the birth: the one to d'Argental, with the quote from Cahn's write-up, which is followed by It will be more difficult for me to give birth to my Catilina; one to the Abbé de Voisenon, which tells the same story about the birth and expands a bit on his own work (During the last days of her pregnancy, I did not know what to do, so I began to have a child on my own; I gave birth in eight days to Catilina. [...] I am amazed/delighted [émerveillé] by Madame du Chatelet's childbed, and terrified by mine.); and finally, one to d'Argenson, which has the fatigued quote. It's written in the same vein and context, but it has a more noticable "having kids = way easier than writing books" slant towards the end, so if you only read this one, you might get the wrong impression:
Mme du Châtelet vous mande, monsieur, que cette nuit, étant à son secrétaire, et griffonnant quelque pancarte newtonienne, elle a eu un petit besoin. Ce petit besoin était une fille qui a paru sur-le-champ. On l’a étendue sur un livre de géométrie in-4°. La mère est allée se coucher, parce qu’il faut bien se coucher ; et, si elle ne dormait pas, elle vous écrirait. Pour moi, qui ai accouché d’une tragédie de Catilina, je suis cent fois plus fatigué qu’elle. Elle n’a mis au monde qu’une petite fille qui ne dit mot, et moi il m’a fallu faire un Cicéron, un César ; et il est plus difficile de faire parler ces gens-là que de faire des enfants, surtout quand on ne veut pas faire un second affront à l’ancienne Rome et au théâtre français.
... and then his letters are all sadness only six days later. :((
Speaking of his letters, though, is there a date for the "knaves" incident? Might be worth checking if the French wiki also has the letter in which he talks about it.
Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-11 05:03 am (UTC)Thank you for providing all three letters! BTW, this reminds me of Lady Mary's biographer pointing out that the "Embassy" letters as they were published, while being based on her diaries and some actual letters, were of course a literary creation (same for Algarotti's "Letters from Russia" and for Bielfeld's Letters), because rl letters, like Voltaire's here, repeat information (and sometimes descriptions and jokes) for different correspondents, whereas these published "Letters" books are offering a progressing narrative which never does that. Given that shared friends like the D'Argentals must have been concerned for Émilie, too, and awaiting the news about her giving birth urgently, I'm not surprised he wrote to three different people the same day with the same basic letters set up.
It's written in the same vein and context, but it has a more noticable "having kids = way easier than writing books" slant towards the end, so if you only read this one, you might get the wrong impression:
True, but I'm assumung Zinnsser would have read all Voltaire letters referring to Émilie as part of her research, especially all written in the month of her death, so she did know the context. Let's face it, scholars setting out to prove a theory will who then end up only quoting what they think supports that theory and ignoring everything else are more common than not....
Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-11 06:42 pm (UTC)Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-11 05:14 am (UTC)Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-11 11:39 am (UTC)Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-12 05:00 am (UTC)Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-12 04:52 am (UTC)Heh, yeah, that third letter if I had read out of context and only that letter, I might have formed a rather less good opinion of Voltaire :P And in all three letters it is definitely all about him too, but I expect no less from Voltaire :) and as you both say, it is clearly meant as a relieved joke and that he admires Emilie a lot! Gah, Zinsser :P
Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-12 04:52 am (UTC)Usually they tend to either err in the bashing or in the blending out of vices direction, if they aren't so afraid of romantisizing that they're so ultra dry so they can't be possibly accused of being entertaining.
Yes!! I love that Orieux can hold the virtues and vices in his head at the same time, and it's honestly a lot more interesting that way (as I keep saying negatively about other biographies :P )
when Voltaire is holidaying with Fritz in Prussia, that between the two of them - Voltaire and Émilie, not Fritz and Émilie - she was the more committed lover
My reaction: ...but Fritz certainly can't quit Voltaire, dunno if that counts as committed... :D
an additional factor was that Voltaire calling Émilie's opponents "knaves" certainly carries the implication that he thinks they're cheating, and for a commoner to accuse noblemen (and -women) of cheating is certainly a potential case of HOW DARE YOU INTO THE BASTILLE WITH YOU!
Oh, yeah, I definitely got that implication from both the Orieux and the Zinsser (though it was a bit more subtle in Orieux and for that I was glad I'd read Zinsser first). But I did not remember from Zinsser that she'd lost large sums -- was it Zinsser or Bodaris who made her sound like a super card shark?
=> Conclusion: Orieux might not have known himself how Frederdorf's name was spelled, and gave a wrong version in his book, which the English translator promptly used as well. Whereas the German translator either counterchecked or actually knew some stuff about Fritz beforehand, including the correct version of Fredersdorf's name.
(Backup for this theory: in the German version of Voltaire's memoirs, Fredersdorf's name is spelled correctly all the way through, very much as opposed to the original French or the English translation.)
! Well, that makes total sense if the original French is also misspelled! Hee. I am thinking that if mildred ever tackles French, I should ask her to make me a copy to read it in French (though there's no way I could keep up with her in French, I wouldn't even have been able to keep up with her at my English reading pace!)
ahhhhhh you are perhaps the first person I have ever met (over the internet or otherwise) besides Awesome French Teacher who has read King of Paris, and I love that you also love it! :D I love that book so much, and like you say I love that Catherine gets to be her own character too <3 (also: Poor Catherine!) I'm sorry to hear Voltaire! Voltaire! isn't as entertaining, sigh. I might still read it to get his take on Rousseau, but I won't go into it with super-high expectations, which is probably a good thing :)
Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-12 05:55 am (UTC)My reaction: ...but Fritz certainly can't quit Voltaire, dunno if that counts as committed...
To be sure, but like I said, Orieux' point was that Voltaire wasn't as committed to Émilie as she was to him in 1743!
was it Zinsser or Bodaris who made her sound like a super card shark?
Bodanis! Though to be fair, he says this of Émilie in her early 20s, before she ever met Voltaire, as a way to finance books. And she may have been a good player early on when her opponents weren't Versailles nobility knowing all the tricks.
ahhhhhh you are perhaps the first person I have ever met (over the internet or otherwise) besides Awesome French Teacher who has read King of Paris, and I love that you also love it!
Us and Orson Welles, who at times wanted to do a film version and of course toyed with the idea of playing at least one of the Alexandres himself. Which, no, Orson. Sure, you could have done a great job, acting-wise, but any member of the Dumas clan other than Catherine needs to be played by a POC actor, and you, Orson, were one of the few people in the film and theatre world of your era who actually worked with POC actors in main roles (see all-black Macbeth, see Faustus with black Mephisto and Helen of Troy) and you did a lot of work with the NACP, so you should have known.
The King of Paris is also why I was thrilled when in the BBC Musketeers series, which had little actual Dumas content left in it but which did have its charms, Porthos was cast with a poc actor and this was not treated as raceblind casting; Porthos' mother in this version was a slave, and slavery comes up now and then in the series. I thought that was a neat nod towards the author, and it was fitting that it was Porthos who personality wise fits with Alexandre père as presented by Guy Endore.
also: Poor Catherine!
No kidding. Endore made the unfairness of Alexandre being the fun parent and overworked Catherine being stuck with the role of strict parent palpable, and it's a good thing that finally, Alexandre fils learns to appreciate her.
Re: My reading of Orieux
Date: 2021-04-16 04:38 am (UTC)Ah, yes, I totally misparsed that! Thanks :)
And she may have been a good player early on when her opponents weren't Versailles nobility knowing all the tricks.
That... makes a lot of sense.
Us and Orson Welles, who at times wanted to do a film version
Oh! You know, I can really understand wanting to do a film version (which would be fantastic!) and I also kind of understand wanting to play one of the Alexandres (because those would be fantastic roles), but yeah. By which I mean: no. That is very cool about Porthos, though!