Cultural references can be a curse if one isn't totally immersed in the culture. And even then - I know about the Aeneid, but I totally would have missed Fritz comparing himself to a left Dido in his angry 1743 letter to Voltaire if Mildred hadn't recognized the quote! At least usually one gets the gist of what's meant, as when Fritz in the Marwitz letters to Heinrich rattles of a couple of similes to, I take it, then popular epics, plays and novels to taunt younger brother with.
Orange peel: I don't think he invented it, either, just like I totally believe in the laundry quote. For the later, we have people referencing the story long before Voltaire's memoirs are published, including such unlikely sources as my guy Boswell in his 1764 diary (having heard a version of it before meeting Voltaire) and MT in her letter to Joseph during the early stage of the War of the Bavarian Succession. For the former, it fits in spirit with something that Fritz did write - remember, when he haggled abouto Voltaire's travelling expenses back in the 1740 day, he actually write "no court jester was ever so expensive" (which brought me up short when coming across it, because for Fritz to use the jester simile when his father isn't dead for a year (and Gundling for nine years, while his successors are luckily still alive but no thanks to FW) is - well, as cold as the orange peel line sounds if you hear it the first time.
He doesn't say that the dirty laundry story is false! He just, you know, implies and insinuates that it's false
Voltaire: clearly still benefitting from excellent education at Louis le Grand, in this case, having read his Tacitus. (Who employed this technique, named insinuatio, a lot; for example, reading Tacitus, you're totally left with the impression he's saying Tiberius and his mother Livia ordered and/or sponsored the death of Germanicus, but if you check the lines word by word, he's never claiming that they did directly. He's just reporting rumors and, well, insinuating.
-"Coquettes, kings, poets are accustomed to be flattered. Frederic unites these three crowns." LOL FOREVER
It is an absolute gem of a line. It's also the kind of characterisation of their hero that 19th and early 20th century nationalist historians absolutely could not stomach, and for which they called Voltaire a liar as much as for his actual fabrications. Conversely, I don't think many a French admirer would have been cool with Fritz' observation that if Voltaire had had armies at his disposal, he totally would have used them to go after his literary enemies. Which, yes. They did see each other very clearly, these two. And that's why I'm shipping them.
if this were a real letter ...why would he have recited so carefully the entire story, given that she was, in fact, there?!
Wow, yes, an "As you know, Bob" letter to Madame Denis does give the game away somewhat. Though it's interesting that Voltaire when reworking and rewriting the letters didn't simply use another correspondant for this last letter (thus avoiding the inconvenience of telling Marie-Louise Denis something she's been a participant of). Presumably friends and relations not Madame Denis (who would have been totally on board with any revenge project for obvious reasons) would not have handed over the original letters? Which, btw, is good to know, since for the early stage of his Prussian adventure (when he's bringing on all the flirtation/wedding/made for each other stuff), we have a letter saying essentially the same thing to his other niece. (The one Orieux actually liked.)
The dictionary for the use of kings!
Your version for mods was another bit that made me scream in delight, btw.
And it bears repeating - titling this entire endeavour "Pamela" is hilarious by itself, due to Richardson's "young virtuous and naive middle class ingenieu"/"debauched aristocratic bastard" constellation in the original Pamela.
he actually write "no court jester was ever so expensive" (which brought me up short when coming across it, because for Fritz to use the jester simile when his father isn't dead for a year (and Gundling for nine years, while his successors are luckily still alive but no thanks to FW)
Oh, whoa! I had forgotten this, and likely when it came up before I hadn't quite internalized all the Gundling etc. context. FRITZ.
But yeah... I get the impression -- which could be totally incorrect, of course -- that at least in these letters Voltaire didn't actually make up anything from whole cloth, though he certainly did a lot of misdirection as to how much blame he should actually get for the whole thing even just given the limited amount (though much more than several months ago!) I know about what actually went down.
(Who employed this technique, named insinuatio, a lot; for example, reading Tacitus, you're totally left with the impression he's saying Tiberius and his mother Livia ordered and/or sponsored the death of Germanicus, but if you check the lines word by word, he's never claiming that they did directly. He's just reporting rumors and, well, insinuating.
Oh WOW. Thank you for the clarification! (Classics salon: also the best! ;) )
Conversely, I don't think many a French admirer would have been cool with Fritz' observation that if Voltaire had had armies at his disposal, he totally would have used them to go after his literary enemies. Which, yes.
OMG HE SO WOULD
They did see each other very clearly, these two. And that's why I'm shipping them.
*nods* Yes! It's really something, that they could say such scathing things of each other because they did see each other so clearly (and did in fact love each other so much, at least in the friendship sense). I ship them too, as you know :D
Though it's interesting that Voltaire when reworking and rewriting the letters didn't simply use another correspondant for this last letter
It's pretty clever; he passes it off as how agitated he is and wondering if it was a dream, and honestly I would have missed it if I hadn't known about Pamela:
I think it's a dream; I believe that all this happened in the time of Denis of Syracuse. I wonder if it is really true that a lady from Paris, traveling with a passport from the king her master, was dragged through the streets of Frankfurt by soldiers, taken to prison without any form of trial, without a chambermaid, without a servant, having at her door four soldiers with bayonets at the end of the rifle, and forced to suffer that a clerk of Freytag, a villain of the vilest kind, spend the night alone in her room. When Brinvilliers was arrested, the executioner was never alone with her; there is no example of such barbarous indecency. And what was your crime? for having run two hundred leagues to bring a dying uncle to the waters of Plombières, whom you regarded as your father.
(May I also just say here that OMG to Voltaire doctoring all these letters to make it look like he's like a father figure to Mme Denis. GAH Voltaire! That and I bet he had daddy kink going on :P )
Your version for mods was another bit that made me scream in delight, btw.
<3 :D It was so perfect I knew it had to go in!
And it bears repeating - titling this entire endeavour "Pamela" is hilarious by itself, due to Richardson's "young virtuous and naive middle class ingenieu"/"debauched aristocratic bastard" constellation in the original Pamela.
:D And this is the sort of thing I'm probably missing all over the place! :D
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Re: Pamela
Orange peel: I don't think he invented it, either, just like I totally believe in the laundry quote. For the later, we have people referencing the story long before Voltaire's memoirs are published, including such unlikely sources as my guy Boswell in his 1764 diary (having heard a version of it before meeting Voltaire) and MT in her letter to Joseph during the early stage of the War of the Bavarian Succession. For the former, it fits in spirit with something that Fritz did write - remember, when he haggled abouto Voltaire's travelling expenses back in the 1740 day, he actually write "no court jester was ever so expensive" (which brought me up short when coming across it, because for Fritz to use the jester simile when his father isn't dead for a year (and Gundling for nine years, while his successors are luckily still alive but no thanks to FW) is - well, as cold as the orange peel line sounds if you hear it the first time.
He doesn't say that the dirty laundry story is false! He just, you know, implies and insinuates that it's false
Voltaire: clearly still benefitting from excellent education at Louis le Grand, in this case, having read his Tacitus. (Who employed this technique, named insinuatio, a lot; for example, reading Tacitus, you're totally left with the impression he's saying Tiberius and his mother Livia ordered and/or sponsored the death of Germanicus, but if you check the lines word by word, he's never claiming that they did directly. He's just reporting rumors and, well, insinuating.
-"Coquettes, kings, poets are accustomed to be flattered. Frederic unites these three crowns." LOL FOREVER
It is an absolute gem of a line. It's also the kind of characterisation of their hero that 19th and early 20th century nationalist historians absolutely could not stomach, and for which they called Voltaire a liar as much as for his actual fabrications. Conversely, I don't think many a French admirer would have been cool with Fritz' observation that if Voltaire had had armies at his disposal, he totally would have used them to go after his literary enemies. Which, yes. They did see each other very clearly, these two. And that's why I'm shipping them.
if this were a real letter ...why would he have recited so carefully the entire story, given that she was, in fact, there?!
Wow, yes, an "As you know, Bob" letter to Madame Denis does give the game away somewhat. Though it's interesting that Voltaire when reworking and rewriting the letters didn't simply use another correspondant for this last letter (thus avoiding the inconvenience of telling Marie-Louise Denis something she's been a participant of). Presumably friends and relations not Madame Denis (who would have been totally on board with any revenge project for obvious reasons) would not have handed over the original letters? Which, btw, is good to know, since for the early stage of his Prussian adventure (when he's bringing on all the flirtation/wedding/made for each other stuff), we have a letter saying essentially the same thing to his other niece. (The one Orieux actually liked.)
The dictionary for the use of kings!
Your version for mods was another bit that made me scream in delight, btw.
And it bears repeating - titling this entire endeavour "Pamela" is hilarious by itself, due to Richardson's "young virtuous and naive middle class ingenieu"/"debauched aristocratic bastard" constellation in the original Pamela.
Re: Pamela
Same!
Re: Pamela
Oh, whoa! I had forgotten this, and likely when it came up before I hadn't quite internalized all the Gundling etc. context. FRITZ.
But yeah... I get the impression -- which could be totally incorrect, of course -- that at least in these letters Voltaire didn't actually make up anything from whole cloth, though he certainly did a lot of misdirection as to how much blame he should actually get for the whole thing even just given the limited amount (though much more than several months ago!) I know about what actually went down.
(Who employed this technique, named insinuatio, a lot; for example, reading Tacitus, you're totally left with the impression he's saying Tiberius and his mother Livia ordered and/or sponsored the death of Germanicus, but if you check the lines word by word, he's never claiming that they did directly. He's just reporting rumors and, well, insinuating.
Oh WOW. Thank you for the clarification! (Classics salon: also the best! ;) )
Conversely, I don't think many a French admirer would have been cool with Fritz' observation that if Voltaire had had armies at his disposal, he totally would have used them to go after his literary enemies. Which, yes.
OMG HE SO WOULD
They did see each other very clearly, these two. And that's why I'm shipping them.
*nods* Yes! It's really something, that they could say such scathing things of each other because they did see each other so clearly (and did in fact love each other so much, at least in the friendship sense). I ship them too, as you know :D
Though it's interesting that Voltaire when reworking and rewriting the letters didn't simply use another correspondant for this last letter
It's pretty clever; he passes it off as how agitated he is and wondering if it was a dream, and honestly I would have missed it if I hadn't known about Pamela:
I think it's a dream; I believe that all this happened in the time of Denis of Syracuse. I wonder if it is really true that a lady from Paris, traveling with a passport from the king her master, was dragged through the streets of Frankfurt by soldiers, taken to prison without any form of trial, without a chambermaid, without a servant, having at her door four soldiers with bayonets at the end of the rifle, and forced to suffer that a clerk of Freytag, a villain of the vilest kind, spend the night alone in her room. When Brinvilliers was arrested, the executioner was never alone with her; there is no example of such barbarous indecency. And what was your crime? for having run two hundred leagues to bring a dying uncle to the waters of Plombières, whom you regarded as your father.
(May I also just say here that OMG to Voltaire doctoring all these letters to make it look like he's like a father figure to Mme Denis. GAH Voltaire! That and I bet he had daddy kink going on :P )
(original French text: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Correspondance_de_Voltaire/1753/Lettre_2624 )
Your version for mods was another bit that made me scream in delight, btw.
<3 :D It was so perfect I knew it had to go in!
And it bears repeating - titling this entire endeavour "Pamela" is hilarious by itself, due to Richardson's "young virtuous and naive middle class ingenieu"/"debauched aristocratic bastard" constellation in the original Pamela.
:D And this is the sort of thing I'm probably missing all over the place! :D