1740 and All That

Summary and excerpts from the correspondance between Friedrich and his favourite writer, based on the edition by Hans Pleschinski.


The Crown Prince Years:

First impressions: mutual admiration society indeed. They lay it on so thick with "you're the greatest!" "no, you're the greatest!" that one is relieved when they talk about subjects other than themselves (Peter I., whether free will is possible when there's a God, Machiavelli) instead. Entertaining as those accolades are, they get tiring after a while, especially coming from people who at this stage haven't met yet. However, I would like to note Voltaire starts with the flirting. As in, when Fritz compares him to Socrates, "if I am Socrates, you are my Alcibiades, for you have his good qualities without his bad ones", equalling his relationships with Emilie and Fritz - "What do I care about the great Nothing, as long as divus Federicus et diva Emilia love me!" and, when news arrives that FW is just about to kick it, starting a letter with "I dream of my Prince the way one dreams of a mistress". (Pleschinski, who ought to know and is no homophobe, translates "einer Geliebten", not "einem Geliebten", i.e. Voltaire uses the female form.)

As for young Fritz, if one already starts in ultimate fanboy mode to the Greatest Living Writer (tm), one has to get really inventive to keep up the accolades without repetition. He takes so much care to always include Émilie in his greetings and to pay compliments to her even in the poems he writers to Voltaire - "le savoir d'Emilie et l'ésprit de Voltaire" are mankind's sublime graces, etc., - that one almost doesn't notice the one thing he pointedly does not do: issue a double invitation in all those "come to me Prussia, why don't you, we would treasure you fare more than those ungrateful French!" urgings, despite Voltaire heavily hinting at one. Divus Fredericus is more of an Old Testament than a pagan god, and he would like to rule alone, thank you very much. Once he becomes King, it's mask off in that regard, and he writes point blank: "As for the divine Emilie, for all her divinity she is no more than the arm decoration of the Newtonian Apollo" whom he'd like to meet alone.

Hilariously and also interesting in hindsight is the Peter the Great stuff. They both start out mostly admiring him, though Voltaire warns Fritz is to be inspired by him solely as a monarch, not as a human being. Then Fritz gets his hands on some memoirs detailing the whole gory Alexeji business and some other ruthless and gory acts. This may or may not have resonated on a personal level, but at any rate he shares the book with Voltaire. Who is all (paraphrasing, not quoting now) "okay, that's changed my image of Peter totally, but I'm still stumped, how can a man be a great reformer dragging his people forward into the modern age while at the same time being responsible for the deaths of so many of them? How can someone be a progressive spirit and yet such a petty tyrant at the same time!" You're about to find out, Voltaire.

Fritz is already badmouthing Machiavelli early on in the correspondance - cmplaining Voltaire lists him as one of the great minds of his age - so one assumes the Anti-Machiavel wasn't entirely out of calculation. He's also badmouthing Grandpa F1 and talking up Dad as a monarch, which could be both from sincere conviction and due to the possibility his letters could be read.

You're probably familiar with the passage where he praises Algarotti? (Whom he also rhymes with (Michelangelo) Buonarotti in a - separate - poem.)

Voltaire: one smooth beta reader. When correcting Fritz' French, he tells him it's far better than his, Voltaire's Latin, it's totally amazing, but just as he himself has to be corrected, there's just this tiny thing here and this little comma there, etc.

mildred_of_midgard, re: Fritz and Émilie du Chatelet: Yep, and yep. That fits what I had picked up on from quotations: she was lucky to have him, didn't deserve him, etc. Friiiitz! (I was going to say something about misogyny here, but...one wonders if romantic jealousy is also a factor.)

selenak: One can stop wondering. He admits it in a letter from June 1740 where he goes from prose into poetry and back, which after "come to meeeeee!" goes:

When Orpheus saw Eurydice in the underworld/he can't have felt more joy/than our happy first encounter will make me feel/but I fear Pluto less than Émilie/Her charms have chained up your life for all time/Love has more power over your heart/than the Styx could have about Eurydice/and the way back to the light.

My apologies to Madame du Chatelet; it is permitted that I envy her one of her possessions which I would gladly exchange with the many which now have become mine.


Voltaire, Fritz and Deaths
...which are a major subject in this part of the correspondance, along with a lot more needling and snark once our two correspondants have actually met.

First, a P.S. to the earlier installment - Voltaire, veteran of father/son emotional bloodshed, in his "congrats, you're king!" letter writes: The is one thing I would never ask a King about, but which I want to know from a human being: it is this - has the former King before his death at last recognized and loved the qualities of my charming Prince? I know that the qualities of the former King were very different from yours, so it may be that he didn't recognize your very different virtues; but if he should have warmed to them near his ending, if he justified the admirable affection you've demonstrated for him through your letters, I would be somewhat content.

To which our antihero replies: I arrived on Friday evening in Potsdam, where I found the late King in such a sad state that I knew his ending was near. He gave me a thousand signs of his friendship and talked to me for a good hour about inner and foreighn affairs, and did this in complete clarity of mind, and with the firmest common sense. On Saturday, Sunday and Monday, too, he appeared very calm, did not hope for any improvement regarding himself, and bore his immense suffering with the greatest firmness; on Tuesday morning at 5 am, he put the government into my hands, and tenderly said farewell to my brothers, of all deserving officers, and of myself. The Queen, my mother and I were with him in his final hours, during which he showed the stoicism of a Cato. He died with the curiosity of a physicist who wants to know what happens with him in the hour of his death, and with the heroic courage of a great man; he left us in sincere sadness about his loss and with the example of a brave dying.
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Note what he didn't answer at all? Voltaire's actual question.

Anyway. King Fritz is a great deal more prone to sarcasm and demands than Crown Prince Fritz, as could be seen in his point blank "you're welcome, Émilie is not" statement as quoted in my last account. Of course, he still thinks Voltaire is the greatest writer of them all. Voltaire, for his part, is still immensely flattering, and pays compliments during the first Silesian war about the new Caesar/Alexander/ etc., but he also starts with the needling. As when he's discussing his new play Mahomet. Which was mostly him using Mohammed as an example of how religious prosecution and theocracy is evil, something he and Fritz of course agree on, but then there's also this:

I know Mohammed hasn't committed exactly the type of treason which is the subject of this tragedy. (...) But whowever carries war into his own country and dares to claim this happens in the name of God and justice - isn't such a man capable of anything?

You tell me, Sire. You tell me. Fritz, writing back from Silesia, does not address this matter at all but sticks to religion as the source of tyranny. Voltaire gets a bit more pointed after one of his many illnesses:

I only touched the Styx with one foot, but I am extremely angry about the number of the poor unfortunates whom I saw transported across this river. Some came from Schärding, the others from Prague or Iglau. Will you and your fellow monarchs never stop ravaging this earth which you claim you want to make happy?

And then he tops this by writing an ode... to Maria Theresia, I kid you not. In July 1742. (I.e. post Silesia 1, pre Silesia 2. This does not make Fritz happier than Wilhelmine meeting her will do:

The Queen of Hungary can count herself fortunate to have found a champion so well versed in the seductive art of words as you. I am glad our little disputes aren't fought in trials, for if I consider your affection for this queen, as well as your talents, I could not help but be defeated by Apollo and Venus.
You thunder against those who fight for their right with weapons in their hands and armed by their claims; but I remember a time when you, if you had been in possession of an army, would certainly have set it marching against the Desfontaines, the Rousseaus, the van Durens etc. etc. etc. As long as the platonic judgment of the Abbot de Sainte Pierre cannot happen, the monarchs of this earth will have no choice but create facts to end their disputes. (...) Misery and misfortune caused by this are like illnesses of the human body. You may regard the last war as a little attack of an eternal fever which has Europe as quickly as it has made Europe shake.

Voltaire not staying permanently in Berlin after his second trip in 1743 does not make Fritz happy, either:

I was your greatest defender, I would have fought anyone who dared to besmirch your genius. But you are an ingrate, the walls of Caucasus have given birht to you, a tigress has been your nurse, your heart is harder than Alpine rock and the marble of Paros; there can be only mercy for you if you come back here, ask for my forgiveness properly and bring those of your works which I find you owe to me with you. These are the conditions under which I am ready to agree to our reconciliation.

Voltaire: does not come back until after Émilie has died. Fritz doesn't get the Pucelle until then, either. Otoh, the widowed Duchess of Würtemberg (previously very briefly mentioned as the mother of Carl Eugen, Wilhelmine's dastardly son-in-law; Fritz can't stand her and won't let her raise her sons who are at his court) does. This is totally not Voltaire's fault. He says. 'Twas his secretary who let her secretary make a copy, in passing.

Émilie dies. Voltaire proves he's one of those men, like Fritz, C.S. Lewis and John Lennon, who think the highest compliment they can pay a woman is to say she's an honorary man. Or maybe he does so because he's writing to Fritz, and wants to get across to him how much Émilie meant to him, I don't know. But:

After twenty five years, I have lost a friend, a great man, who had only one flaw, that of being a woman, who is now mourned and honored by all of Paris. They may not have done her justice in life, and perhaps you would not have judged her as you did if she had had the honor of being presented to your majesty in person. But a woman who was able to translate Newton and Virgil and who had all the virtues of a gentleman will be undoubtedly be mourned by you as well.

Don't count on it, Voltaire. Btw, in the same letter he asks for Fritz to give him a medal as a little consolation, to wit, the newly founded Pour le Merite, which is available for civilians as well as the military. He won't get it until he's in Berlin, though. Given Fritz' track record of condolence letters, I was fearing the worst, but if he wrote a dastardly one following this, Pleschinski doesn't include it. Voltaire brings up Emilie and her death at irregular intervals through the years (for example, the court of King Stanislaus - "where I saw Madame du Chatelet die a hundered times more cruelly than you can possibly imagine has become a place of horror to me" ) but Fritz: *crickets* Instead, Fritz snarks about Voltaire not being with him already:

You will never lack good excuses for not coming; such a vivid imagination as yours is inexhaustible. (...) Thus I believe in your journey even less than in the arrival of the Messiah whom the Jews are still counting on.

He then gets back into flirting mode and writes a poem in which Voltaire is Danae and he's Zeus, who, as you'll recall, came to Danae in the shape of a rain of Gold:

For a brilliant beauty/Who attracted his fervent desire/ Jupiter devised to become/a splendid suitor/ Gold rained, and its enchantment/ compelled the harsh cruelty/ of the too chaste beloved/ (...)I who do not have the honor/to be this mighty God's replica/ I will in this agrarian place/still provide you with as much/imitate I will this rain/ which her suitor showed Danae with…

That does it. Voltaire rhymes back: "You very aged Danae/ will leave her little home/The gold which Jupiter sends/ is not her heart's desire/ She loves with a devoted heart/ Jupiter and not his pouring."

He arrives. Disaster ensues. The tale is told elsewhere, but let me just a few quotes from Voltaire writing to people who weren't Fritz aabout him during that time, all not from Pleschinski's book but from Gustav' Volz' second volume of "Friedrich der Große im Spiegel seiner Zeit", which is when he starts with the Voltaire quotes from 1750-1753, from the early "he's the best, adores me, and btw, if the King and Madame de Pompadour would have treated me like that, I'd still be in Versailles!" to the late "I'm outta here, Frederick-Alcina!" .

Berlin, September 23rd, 1750 (to Madame de Fontaine): I wish I could sacrifice the King of Prussia for your benefit, but I can't. He's a King, but it's a sixteen-years-long passion that connects us; he's swept me away. I imagine nature has created me for him. Our taste is so eerily alike that I forgot he's master over half of Germany. And that the other half trembles in front of him, that he's won five battles and is the greatest general of Europe, that he's surrounded by six foot tall professional killers. All of this should have caused me to run a thousand miles in the other direction, but the philosopher in him has reconciled me with the monarch, and I have only found him to be a great man who is good and sociable.

Voltaire the beta reader, as described in a letter to Madame Denis:

I'm currently correcting the second edition the King wants to publish of the "History of the House of Brandenburg". An author like himself doesn't have to go into exile in order to tell the truth. He's using that privilege aplenty. Just imagine, in order to come across as impartial, he's bashing his grandfather like no one's business. I have softened the blows as much as I could. I do love this grandfather a bit: for he loved splendour, and has left behind beautiful monuments. With some effort, I've toned down the accusations the grandson made at the grandfather regarding the later's vanity that made him put a royal crown on his head. Said vanity has produced solid advantages for the descendants, after all, and a royal title is nothing to sneeze at. Finally I said to him: "It's your grandfather, not mine. Do whatever you want." Afterwards I only complained about expressions. That's all very entertaining and fills out my day.

Do we detect some exasparation in the idyll already?

Potsdam, November 6th 1750 (still to Madame Denis): So people in Paris know that we've produced "La Rome Sauvée" in Potsdam, that Prince Henri is a good actor without any accent and very charming, and that there's a lot of entertainment here? That's all true, but -. The soupers of the King are delicious. One talks with reason, esprit and knowledge; freedom rules; he's the soul of everything; there's no bad mood, no clouds, well, at least no thunder and lightning. My life is free and fully occupied, but - but. Operas, comedies, carousels. Soupers in Sanssouci. Military manouvres. Concerts. Studies. Reading; - but - but -. The town of Berlin is large, with wider streets than Paris. Palaces, theatres, gracious Queens, charming princesses, beautiful, well dressed ladies-in-waiting. Our envoy's house is always full of guests, sometimes too many, - but - but - the cold season approaches.


Not just the cold season. The percentages of male versus female people around Fritz is starting to annoy Voltaire:

We're three or four foreigners here and live like monks in a monastery. Hopefully our high born abbot is just laughing at us! Still, there's a solid quantum jealousy here. Where does envy creep towards when it isn't here? Ah, I swear to you, there's nothing to be envious about. One would only have to live in peace, but Kings are like female coquettes; their very glances inspire jealousy. And Friedrich is very much of a coquette. Then again, there are a hundred social circles in Paris which are even more infected with that vice. The most cruel "but" I can see is that this country isn't for you. As far as I can see, ten months of the year are spent in Potsdam. This isn't a court, but a quiet place from which the ladies have been banished, even if we're not in a monastery. Thinking this through: expect me in Paris (...)!

Not so fast, Voltaire. You still have two and a half years in Prussia to go, and besides, has the charm of the main attraction already faded?

Nature has created Frederick the Great for me. It would have to be the work of the devil if my final years won't be happy ones, consorting with a prince who shares my thoughts in everything, and who loves me as much as a King is able to love.

Then the "squeezes like an orange"/dirty laundry" quote exchange happens. Also Voltaire hears about the Palladion and is less than impressed, presumably wondering whether he'll guest star in the next poem.

Guess what, his majesty has equipped his secretary Darget with several qualities in his jests which the later was severely insulted by. He gave him a vigorous role in his poem "The Palladion". And this poetry has been printed, though just with a few copies. What shall one say? If it's true, one has to console oneself by assuming the great ones love the little people they jest about. But what to do if they don't love? Why, to ridicule them right back and to leave them in the same spirit. It will take some time to make the means I'd had transfered here solvent. This time I'll dedicate to patience and work. The rest of my life will be dedicated to you.

Maupertuis vs König becomes Maupertuis vs Voltaire becomes Fritz vs Voltaire.

Since I don't have a hundred and fifty thousand villains in my service, I won't conduct war. I'm just contemplating a proper desertion, to look after my health, to see you again and to forget this three-years-long dream.
I can see now, one has... squeezed the orange dry; now let's save the peel, shall we? I shall put together a dictionary for Kings as my entertainment. "My friend" means "my slave". "My dear friend" means "I'm more than indifferent to you". "I shall make you happy" means: "I'll tolerate you for as long as I need you." "Dine with me today" means: "I'll have a go at you this evening." This dictionary may expand for quite a while; it's worth an article in the Encyclopedia. (The famous "Encyclopedia by Diderot and D'Alembert".) Seriously, all that I've experienced here makes my heart burst.

There, there, Voltaire. As Mildred put it, celebrity break-ups are hard.

Moving on to the 7 Years War, where safe and far, far from Prussia Living Voltaire gets suicidal letters from Fritz (before Wilhelmine's death) and replies thusly:

You want to die. I won't speak to you of the painful horror this plan inflicts. (...) Let me instead add that nobody will regard you as freedom's martyr. You have to do justice to yourself; you know how many courts insist on regarding your invasion of Saxony as a violation of international law. What will people at these courts say? That you have avenged this invasion at yourself, that the grief to have acted against the law overwhelmed you. Do you want that? (...)
I, too, would have been in a mood to die when I lost my country because of you and my niece was dragged through the streets of Frankfurt on your orders. (...) He senses that such a dark decision is moved by speculation for an honor which won't be given to him. He feels that he doesn't want to be humiliated by personal enemies. So he makes that decision out of hurt, desperate vanity. Follow instead your superior reason despite such feelings; your reason will tell you you've not been humiliated and that you never can be; it tells you that you are a man like any other who even in the worst of circumstances will keep what makes other people happy: wealth, office, dignity, friends. (...)Can you truly claim to be a philospher if you couldn't live as a private citizen or if you, a former souvereign, could not bear anyone opposing you? (...) I am sixty five years old; I was born ill; I only have but one more moment to live; I was very unhappy, as you know; but I would die happily if I could leave you back alive on this earth and if you only practiced what you have so often written about.

Then Wilhelmine dies. Fritz writes to Voltaire on December 6th 1758, i.e. two months later:

You won't have found it difficult to measure the pain this loss has caused me. There are misfortunes which one can face with steadfastness and some courage; and then there are others against which all the steadfastness with one wishes to arm oneself and all the talk of philosophy is nothing, is useless help. (...) Never lose the memory of her, and please, I beg you, collect all your powers to create a monument in her honor. You only have to do her justice; and without needing to depart from truth at all, you will have the most beautiful and inexhaustible subject. I wish you more happiness and peace than I will now ever have. Federic.

So Voltaire writes a first draft of an ode to Wilhelmine ("femme sans préjugés, sans vice et sans molesse" and "ton cher frère aujourd'hui, dans un noble repos/recueillerait son ame à soi meme rendue;/ Le philosophe, le héros,/Ne serait affligé que de t'avoir perdue"). And so forth. But far from taking his loss stoically, for the first time, Fritz is not impressed by a Voltaire poetical work.

I received the verses you've written. Obviously I didn't express myself clear enough. I want something more splendid and more representative of her. All of Europe needs to cry with me for a virtuous woman far too little known. It's not necessary that my name is mentioned in this ode; all the world must know that she is worthy of immortality, and it is up to you to give her a place among the immortals!

They say that only Apelles was worthy of painting Alexander, and I believe that your pen is the only one worthy of serving the one being who will forever be the cause of my tears. I'm sending you verses I've written in a camp and which I have sent her a month before the cruel catastrophe which has taken her from me forever. These verses are assuredly not worthy of her, but they were at least a true expression of my emotions. In a word: I will only be able to die content if you manage to surpass yourself in this sad task I am giving you.

Pray for peace, but unless victory would give her back to me, neither peace nor victory nor anything in this universe could soothe the pain which eats me up inside.

(Voltaire writes a second version of the ode to Wilhelmine, which ends up in the first edition of Candide, and Fritz professes himself satisfied. But really, he wanted her back, and that was a task beyond any writer.)



Okay, the finale. As the 7 Years War continues, Voltaire writes to Fritz what is probably the most famous of his statements about their relationship, so Mildred is bound to be familiar with it, but Cahn is not.

I admit to be very rich, very indedependent and very happy; but you are the one thing I am missing in my happiness, and soon I will die without having seen you again; you hardly care, and I try to work on not caring, either. I love your verses, your prose, your ésprit, your bold and firm mind. I couldn't live without you, nor with you. I do not speak to the King right now, to the hero, that is the business of monarchs. I speak to the one who has bewitched me, whom I have loved and who never ceases to infuriate me.

Now there, Fritz. You couldn't ask for a better love declaration, can you?

Our antihero replies (July 1759): You are indeed a unique creature; whenever I want to be angry with you, you speak two words to me, and my accusations die in the tip of my pen. (...) I know very well I have adored you for as long as I didn't regard you as a pest and a villain; but you have played so many dirty tricks on me - but let's no longer talk about this; I have forgiven you everything in my Christian heart. All in all, you've provided me with more joy than grief. I take more enjoyment in your works and only feel a little of the scratches. If you didn't have any flaws, you could make the human species look far too inferior, and the universe would have good cause to be envious of your qualities. As it is, one can say: Voltaire is the most beautiful genius of all centuries, but I am at least more calm, more agreeable and more soft hearted than he is. And this comforts a common man over the fact of your existence.

Now I'm talking to you as your father confessor would, if you had one. Don't be angry, and try to hone all your good traits into the perfection I want to admire in you with all my heart.

Rumor has it that you want to write a tragedy based on Socrates. I can hardly believe it. How could one introduce female characters in such a play? Love would only be a cold episode; the entire subject only offers a great fifth act, Plato's Phaidon one beautiful scene, but that is it. I have overcome a few prejudices - young Fritz early in the correspondance used to complain about romance in tragedies - and I must admit to you that I no longer consider love out of place in tragedy. No matter what anyone says, I can never read Berenice without shedding tears. Tell me I cry without reason if you must, think what you will; but nothing will be able to convince me that a play is bad which is able to touch me and move me.

Sudden work stops me from writing further. Live in peace; if you have no other care than my anger, you may allow your mind some rest on that count. Vale. Federic.

(Berenice: presumably Racine's version, about which more here. Draw your own conclusion about the fact that Titus, the hero of the play, was expected to live for love and marry the one he loved after his father Vespasian's death, but instead in the end follows the path of political duty, as does, in the end, Berenice.)

Once the war is over, it's noticable that the two decades age gap between our two correspondants has ceased to matter, because Fritz, who has aged rapidly, is in his own eyes and everyone else's eyes an old man now. But it's not all exchange of health tips and literary matters; Voltaire fights for two very worthy causes which illustrate his commitment to human rights beyond satire quite well. One is the Affaire Calas, about which more here, which thanks to Voltaire ended as nearly as much talked about as the far later victim of outrageous injustice by the state, Dreyfus, the other the matter of the Chevalier La Barre, beheaded and after his death burned for extreme blasphemy. (French law pre French Revolution: like that. Actually worse than in Italy, because the French church, like the Polish church today, prided itself on being more Catholic than the Pope. The Pope of the 1750s having been Benedict the Newtonian - aka the one whom Wilhelmine jested to Fritz about in her letters - whom Voltaire, in a typical move, dedicated his tragedy Mahomet to to avoid the accusation he was using Mohammed and Islam to satirize the Roman Catholic Church. This worked in as much as the Pope was amused, accepted the dedication and wrote a few encouraging letters, and didn't work in as much as Voltaire still couldn't get the play staged in France where the French church, see above, was more Catholic than the Pope.)

In the 1760s, Voltaire starts his correspondance with Catherine, who promptly gets referred to as "your Empress" or "your Imperiatrizia" by Fritz in his letters. Fritz also reports about his two meetings with Joseph, and what he writes before meeting ViennaJoe for the second time is downright crack ship encouraging, since it's not in a over the top letter between monarchs but in a personal one to Voltaire:

This Prince is amiable and truly deserving. He esteems your works and reads them as often as he an; he's not superstitious in the least. Consequently, he's an Emperor of a kind we haven't had in Germany since a long time. Neither he nor I like ignorants or barbarians; but this isn't a reason to kill them; if it was, the Turks would hardly be the only ones. How many nations have been dumbed down due to lacking enlightenment!

What he's alluding to here is that Voltaire in his old age has decided there is actually one worthy cause he wants Fritz to go to war to, allied with Joseph and Catherine both: against the Ottomans. Voltaire, it turns out, is really sincere idea that both Islam is the worst of the Abrahamatic religions and the Turks are the worst, and he wants Team Enlightened Monarchs to take them on militarily. I kid you not.

It's all very well to say that the Mohammadanian religion should pose a counterweight to the Greek religion and the Greek religion to the Catholic one. I'd love for you to be the counterweight. I'm always aggrieved at the idea that the feet of some pasha should walk through the ashes of Themistocles and of Alcibiades. This image makes me want to throw up as much as the one of Cardinals petting their doves at the tombs of Marcus Aurelius does.
Seriously, I don't understand why the Empress-Queen doesn't sell her household goods and equips her son, the Emperor, your friend - in as much as people of your rank can have friends - with her last Taler so he can go at the head of an army to Adrianopel and await Cathereine there. This enterprise strikes me as so natural, so easy, so beautiful that I can't understand why it has not yet been accomplished; of course your majesty would have received a good glass of wine out of this deal. Everyone has their chimera; this is mine.

(Voltaire, you don't want to know how "liberating" Muslim nations "for their own good" works out; you truly don't. Incidentally, Joseph and Catherine did fight the Ottomans together at a later point, post MT's death. This did not go well for Joseph.) Anyway, Fritz replies to this sudden pro war stance by Voltaire thusly:

You are amazed that neither the Emperor nor myself interfere in the oriental conundrums. As for the Emperor, you'd have to ask Prince Kaunitz; he will tell you the secrets of his policy. As for me, I provide the Russian operations with money, which I'm paying them for a considerable time already, and you should know than an ally doesn't provide both troops and money at the same time. I'm only indirectly concerned in this whole mess due to my relationship with your Empress. And speaking personally: I abstain from war out of fear to be excommunicated by my favourite philosopher.

(Shade throwing: still an art.)

Our antihero is of course aware he is not likely to see his favourite writer ever again. This comes up when Voltaire meets Wilhelmine's daughter.

If I cannot see you again in this life, I am glad you have encountered the Duchess of Würtemberg. Our way of hearing from each other via third parties does not replace the facie ad faciem. Greetings and letters do not replace Voltaire if one has once has had him in persona.
I am overjoyed at the virtuous tears you have shed in memory of my late sister. If I had been present during this sad scene, I would have united my tears with yours. Whether out of weakness or overwhelming affection, I have done for my sister what Cicero had planed to do for his Tullia. I have build her a temple dedicated to friendship; her statue stands in the back, and on every column there is a medaillon with an image of the heroes of friendship. I'm sending you a sketch in this letter. This temple I have placed in a part of my garden. I often go there, to remember her whom I have lost and of the happiness I once have enjoyed.

The letters they write to each other in their sunset years are affectionate and barbed, with ongoing mutual admiration without this going into such extremes as the crown prince/Voltaire correspondance. One thing Pleschinski notes is that neither of them seems to be interested at all in what's going on in the British soon to be ex colonies during the 1770s. This despite the fact that Prussia actually had, via Steuben, some troops there. (Then again: Steuben: while venerating den einzigen König, more of a Heinrich fan. Cahn, did Mildred and I tell you yet about the time Steuben, he who fought in the American war of independence, wanted to make Heinrich King of America afterwards?) And you'd think Voltaire would be interested in revolution, especially one which actually gets armed support from France, but noooo. This is a contrast not just to younger people like Boswell - who is from another generation and a Scot and thus does root for the colonial rebels - but to the Duc of Croy (also translated by Pleschinski, remember my summaries and excerpts a few posts ago) who is of Fritz' age and very interested in what's going on overseas, and in Franklin. It's part of their mutual tendency to get increasingly isolated from the new world shaping around them, not just culturally. (Cue a few Fritz lines about omg, what are my people doing, staging godawful Shakespeare in godawful German translations in our theatres, we'll never be able to reach the French standard of literature that way!)

Voltaire's last letter is from Paris, where he's back after many years of exile and will experience one last triumph as his play Irene gets staged to thunderous applaus. It's the eve of the Revolution, of which he'll be regarded as a forerunner; he dies in Paris and the aftermath of his death is a story by itself, illustrating the need for revolution, among so many other things. Fritz, like I said, writes a heartfelt "why he was the greatest" speech to be read out loud at his academy. Earlier, he'd written to his problematic fave: "I am content to have lived in the age of Voltaire".

(Which is what the 18th century is actually known as in France - until the Revolution, of course. But Fritz said it first.)

Addenda:


Voltaire's Death
Okay, brace yourself. To make this convoluted tale a bit easier, a reminder about the players, other than Voltaire himself:

Marie-Louise Denis, aka Madame Denis: Voltaire's niece, mistress (though they weren't exclusive, which he knew)and primary beneficiary of his will. Resented by pretty much everyone else as his gatekeepr, which is important to remember as she doesn't come across too well in their stories. In fairness: She did run Voltaire's household for him from his time in Prussia till his death, put up with all the drama, and shared exile with him for decades.

Marquis de Villette: Voltaire's last host in Paris. (Not having lived there for decades, Voltaire didn't have a house of his own.) Married to Voltaire's adopted daughter. Will end up with his heart.

Dr. Tronchin: Swiss Doctor whom both Fritz and Voltaire swear on. Is, however, a strict Calvinist and disapproves of Voltaire's religious attitude or lack of same. (Not to mention Voltaire's an exasparating patient.) How relieable is Dr. Tronchin? Well, he was the one to diagnose Ferdinand being REALLY REALLY sick when Ferdinand after AW's death decided tell his brothers "you do you, I'm permanently out of soldiering forever, good luck with the war!" and high tail it back to Berlin.

Abbé Gaultier: universally described as none too bright but harmless. Not to be confused with:

Abbé Mignot: one of Voltaire's nephews. More Christian than most clergy in this story.

D'Hornoy: another of Voltaire's nephews. Fond of law suits.

Archbishop of Paris: deserves all the shades Voltaire and Fritz ever threw on the clergy.

Morand: Voltaire's servant.

So, the stage is set. It's the late 1770s (one more decade till the revolution). Voltaire, in his Swiss countryside retirement estate, Ferney, gets the news that his play Irene will be staged in Paris, and the Academie Francaise wants to honor him. Now, Voltaire has been insisting on being on death's door for decades, and now he's in his 80s. He's very aware that if he makes the journey back to Paris, he will probably not leave it again. Also, it's still French law that anyone the (French) church regards as not having died a Christian death will be refused a Christian burial and end up buried in the proverbial dungheap. Ditto for theatre people (all of them.) (This kind of thing was what young Voltaire wrote one of his early pamphlets about, apropos the death of a beloved star actress, who, he said, if British would have been buried in Westminster Abbey and in France is refused a proper funeral, because actress.) But: Paris. He was born there. In his letters to Fritz, he keeps writing "we in Paris" despite not having been there for decades. It's Paris. And being publically acclaimed is rather nice. Also, Madame Denis (another Parisian), seeing a chance to finally return, is all for it. And, you know, he's a dramatist. Who knows the value of a great ending better than Voltaire? So: off he goes.

It's pretty much a universal triumph. The custom people at Paris city gate recognize him instantly, declare "Mondieu, it's Monsieur de Voltaire!" and let him pass through. Flowers in the streets. Threehundred visitors and more a day at the Palais de Villette (which the Marquise and Madame Denis have to somehow keep entertained while they wait their chance to talk to the genius). When he arrives at the Academie Francaise, every single member walks towards him, something that had never happened before or since. They shout his name in the streets. When he sits down in the Comedie Francaise at the premiere of Irene, people bring him a laurel wreath (like Caesar, he puts it off again, and there's so much applause the performance can't start until 20 minutes later). After the end, the actors crown the bust of Voltaire which was in the Foyer on stage with the laurels and flowers on central stage and dance around it. The audience cries "Vive Voltaire! Long live the French Sophocles! Long live our Homer!"

And just to make the triumph triple, Voltaire the relentless campaigner against human rights injustices also scores; his efforts for his latest cause, Admiral Lally who'd been unfairly condemned and executed after a show trial, pay off and Lally gets officially declared innocent.

However, while all this Voltaire mania is going on, the Parisian clergy doesn't rest. They, too, are very aware he's at death's door. And when the most famous intellectual of Europe, the most relentless satirizer of the clergy for the last sixty years, is made to publically repent, well. Major triumph. If not, he won't get a funeral. At all.

Voltaire, all too aware of this, has his first serious attack and picks a mild and none too bright guy, the Abbé Gaultier, to confess to. Gaultier gets strickt instructions from the Archbishop of Paris and a pre written letter Voltaire's to sign where he revokes all he's ever said before he is to get the sacrements. Voltaire, however, is still Voltaire and immediately talks young Gaultier around - writerly pride and all - so that Gaultier lets him draft his own letter. This one says: "The undersigned declares that since four days he's been spitting blood at the age of 84. Since he can't drag himself to church and the Pastor of Saint Sulspice has added another good work to his previous good works by sending the Abbé Gaultier, I have made my confession to the later and die, if God calls me, in the holy Catholic religion into which I was born. I hope for God's mercy, and if I have ever given the Church reason for anger, I ask it and God for forgiveness."

Gaultier thinks this is great. (The Achbishop of Paris, otoh, will be incensed, because that letter doesn't take back a single thing nor does Voltaire say he was wrong about any of it. And saying he was born and died a Catholic is must matter of factual.) Gaultier absolves Voltaire from all sins and wants to give Voltaire the communion, as per usual, but Voltaire declines, because, he says, he doesn't want to mix the blood in his mouth with the Lord's body, and what if a coughing fit happens and he spits it out. Best not, young priest. Exit Gaultier convinced nice Monsieur de Voltaire has now seen the light, only to be shouted at by his superiors and pretty much every other clergyman he'll talk to.

Voltaire actually recovers from this attack and gets feted and celebrated some more, but in May, curtain time has definitely arrived. And everyone knows it. Madame Denis censors the mail reaching Voltaire and the one he sends, according to his servant Morand because she's afraid he might change his will at the last minute. He finds out, is angry, and sends her away a week before his death. He won't see her again. Four days before his death, he gets the good news about Lally's rehabilitation, which perks him up a bit. Otherwise, it's one painful dying week. Just how painful is also debated because Doctor Tonchin the Calvinist is later responsible for a lot of gory stories in which a tormented Voltaire cries "I'm in hell", curses all his evil free thinking and dies in his own shit and blood, which his servant and the nephews as well as the Villettes and other visitors during that week deny. Though Voltaire is not able to make good of his vow to D'Alembert (= one of the two great dictionary guys) that if he can, he'll die laughing. Gaultier shows up again, instructed to get a proper repentance letter confession this time, with a superior because he can't be trusted to hold his own against Voltaire.

Voltaire thanks Gaultier politely for his efforts, but when Gaultier's boss starts to have a go at him, the dying Voltaire actually punches in his general direction and cries "In God's Name! Stop talking to me! Out!" The insulted priest tells Gaultier and later everyone else that Voltaire does not die as a Christian and therefore his body will be a refused a funeral. Dung heap time. (He says this in the presence of the dying Voltaire while in the process of getting thrown out.)

According to Voltaire's servant Morand, Voltaire dies at peace af few hours later with the words "Adieu, my dear Morand, I die". According to the Russian ambassador, who is there to report to Catherine (and also denies Voltaire spent the previous week declaring himself to be in hell, though he was at pain), Voltaire added "take care of Mama" which was his nickname for Madame Denis. In any event: he dies. And the archbishop of Paris is really insistent that there must not be a funeral.

Now the nephews get into action. Voltaire's body gets embalmed. (The innards get thrown into the latrine, the heart gets given to the Marquis de Villette and will end up in the French National Library where it is still today. The brain got to the musee of the Comedie Francaise after a longer odyssee, but has been lost since 1924. The body, embalmed, was brought out of Paris. Now, another of Voltaire's nephews as actually an Abbé in the Abbey Scellières in the Champagne, and this nephew - Abbé Mignot - took it upon himself to ensure Uncle Voltaire got properly buried there, with all due rites. Was this the end? It was not.

Of course the higher clergy found out and insisted Voltaire's body should be exhumed and flung unto that dungheap at last. Which is when nephew D'Hornoy threatened with a law suit. At which point someone must have told the archbishops of France that if this happened they'd look terrible in front of the entire world, because no exhuming was done. For now; come the French Revolution, Voltaire was reburied and brought to the new Pantheon.

(Spare some pity for Abbé Gaultier, though, who at least meant well: he insisted that Voltaire had properly repented the first time around but was punished for the whole PR fiasco regardless. And then he got executed in the French Revolution.)

There was a legend that some ultra monarchists had a go at Voltaire's bones during Napoleon's first defeat and exile and finally flung them on that dung heap, but this turned out not to be true. On December 18th 1897, both the coffins of Voltaire and Rousseau in the Pantheon were opened, and both their earthly remains were still present, such as there were. So: Voltaire: drama till the end, and after.




Voltaire and Ulrike (of Sweden) (one of Friedrich's younger sisters)

mildred_of_midgard:
Okay, I've now dug up the full set of poems, instead of relying on other people's excerpts, and you can judge for yourself, but it does seem to me like Fritz is being playful rather than upset while discouraging Voltaire. He also, amazingly, manages to drag Émilie into it, because Émilie is his main romantic rival in life right now.

So here's Voltaire's poem to Ulrike:

Souvent un peu de vérité
Se mêle au plus grossier mensonge.
Cette nuit, dans l'erreur d'un songe,
Au rang des rois j'étais monté;
Je vous aimais, princesse, et j'osais vous le dire.
Les dieux à mon réveil ne m'ont pas tout ôté;
Je n'ai perdu que mon empire.

Fritz then wrote three [god, this is so in character, "Hamilton wrote the other fifty-one" describes him perfectly] separate replies, apparently:

1) C'est pour vous faire part, monsieur, de l'aventure la plus étrange de ma vie que j'ai le plaisir de vous écrire. Comme vous y avez donné lieu, je ne pouvais me dispenser de vous en faire le récit. Retirée dans ma solitude, dans le temps que Morphée sème ses pavots, je goûtais le plaisir d'un sommeil doux et tranquille. Un songe charmant s'emparait de mes sens. Apollon, d'un port majestueux, l'air doux et gracieux, suivi des neuf Sœurs, se présente à ma vue. « J'apprends, dit-il, jeune mortelle, que tu reçus des vers de mon favori. Une chétive prose fut toute ta réponse; j'en fus offensé. Ton ignorance fit ton crime; te pardonner, c'est l'ouvrage des dieux. Viens, je veux te dicter. » J'obéis en écrivant ce qui suit :

Quand vous fûtes ici, Voltaire,
Berlin, de l'arsenal de Mars,
Devint le temple des beaux-arts;
Mais trop plein de l'objet dont le cœur vous sut plaire,
Émilie, en tous lieux présente à vos regards ....
Enfin l'illusion, une douce chimère,
Me fit passer chez vous pour reine de Cythère.
Au sortir de ce songe heureux,
La vérité, toujours sévère,
A Bruxelles bientôt dessillera vos yeux;
Je sens assez de nous la différence extrême.
O vous, tendres amis, qui vous rendez fameux!
Au haut de l'Hélicon vous vous placez vous-même;
Moi, je dois tout à mes aïeux.
Tel est l'arrêt du sort suprême:
Le hasard fait les rois, la vertu fait les dieux.

A ces mots je m'éveillai; à mon réveil vous perdîtes un empire, et moi, l'art de rimer. Contentez-vous, monsieur, qu'une deuxième fois, en prose, je vous assure de l'estime parfaite avec laquelle je suis

Votre affectionnée
Ulrique.

2) On remarque pour l'ordinaire
Qu'un songe est analogue à notre caractère :
Un héros peut rêver qu'il a passé le Rhin,
Un marchand, qu'il a fait fortune,
Un chien, qu'il aboie à la lune.
Mais que Voltaire, en Prusse, à l'aide d'un mensonge,
S'imagine être roi pour faire le faquin,
Ma foi, c'est abuser du songe.

3) Je ne fais cas que de la vérité;
Mon cœur n'est pas flatté d'un séduisant mensonge.
Je ne regrette point, dans l'erreur de ce songe,
La perte du haut rang où vous étiez monté;
Mais ce qui vous en reste, et que vous n'osez dire,
S'il est vrai que jamais il ne vous soit ôté,
Vaut à mes yeux le plus puissant empire.

Admittedly my French is no great shakes, but Fritz seems more peeved about Voltaire leaving him for Émilie (this was written after Voltaire was on his way away from Fritz's court back to Brussels) than about anything Voltaire may be thinking of doing with Ulrike. He seems still quite taken with Voltaire in these.

Lol, I went and looked again at that article on how the Voltaire-Ulrica relationship evolved (long story short, once she became queen he became far more interested in her as a potential patron than as a woman), and it contains these lines: "Implied here is the notion that a liaison is just as conceivable between the poet and the Princess, as between the poet and the King." I mean, that's *exactly* what I got out of these poems. "Yes, yes, you're interested in my sister, that's nice, what about meeeeee??? Freaking Émilie."

It's also evidently been questioned whether Fritz was even the author of (2).

Classical mythology references that may be a little on the obscure side, forgive me if they're well-known to everyone:
- Cythère = Cythera, home of Aphrodite
- Helicon = Mount Helicon, haunt of the Muses

selenak:

Courtesy of Mildred‘s algorithms, I can no contribute some quotes on this matter, too.

Fritz to Émilie: How happy you are, Madame, to have a unique man like Voltaire, with all the talents you have from nature! I would feel tempted to be envious if I did not abhor envy.

If you say so, Fritz. In 1743, as Mildred has told us, during Voltaire‘s second visit to Prussia, he flirts with Ulrike and writes a poem for her to which Fritz replies in Ulrike‘s name with more poetry. This is Ulrike‘s comment:

M. de Voltaire will not regret having started a correspondence with me, when he receives the charming reply in verse for which I cannot thank your majesty enough. If he could believe that I was its author, though, his heart would fail him most dreadfully; but he has too much discernment not to know which Apollo inspired me. It is a consolation for the Marquise that I would not always dare to have recourse to this god, since only thus she is sure of keeping her reign.

I dare say Émilie could cope with more Fritzian love poetry as competition, but fine. 1740s Ulrike also has this to say on family affairs:

My brother Heinrich must be very sensitive to the honor that your majesty does him. How happy we are all together to live under the laws of a brother who is a true father to us!

And this is why Ulrike gets played by Joan Collins in my head.


Fritz and Émilie

Oh, and I've just come across this quote from a letter from Émilie to Fritz - they did exchange a few, though not many:

Judge me by my merits or by the absence of such merits; but do not consider me merely as an entourage of this great general or that well-deserving scholar, this star at the French court, or that famous poet. I am a person of my own and responsible for everything I am or do. There may be metaphysicians and philosophers whose knowledge is greater than mine; I haven't met them yet. But they, too, are only weak, flawed people, and if I add up my gifts, I can say that I am not inferior to anyone.


Pleschinski ends his corrrespondance volume with the big "Why Voltaire was the greatest" speech Fritz honored him with after his death (read out to the academy in Berlin by Thiébaut), and in it, there's a tribute to Émilie and her life partnership with Voltaire as well. While this isn't quite the acknowledgment as her own person she was going for in this quote, it does strike me as Fritz belatedly apologizing and acknowledging what she had meant (both to Voltaire and to the world of science). At this point, she's been dead for several decades and starting to be forgotten already:

Back then there lived in France a lady, famous for her love for art and the sciences. You guess correctly, gentlemen, it is the illustrious Marquise du Chatelet of whom we now want to speak. She had read the philosphical works of our young author; soon, she made his personal aquaintance. Her desire for education and the burning wish to search for the few truths we can reach with our human minds created the ties of friendship between them, and made them undissolvable. I tried. Madame du Chatelet abandoned the theodicee of Leipzniz and the novels of this philosopher and replaced them by the careful and deductive methods of Locke, less prone to fulfill an urgent desire for knowledge than to feed strict reasoning; she made mathematics her own to such a point that she could follow Newton in his most abstract calculations; she even undertook the task of writing a summary of this system for her son. Very soon, Cirey became the refuge of the two friends; here they wrote, each for themselves, works of the most different types, about which they disputed, trying to comment each other's works in order to allow that work to achieve the highest standards.

(...) ( Fritz lists the works Voltaire wrote in his years with Émilie.)

While Monsieur de Voltaire was receptive to the splendours of royal honors, he was even more receptive to friendship; his bond with Madame du Chatelet was eternal, and thus the glamour of Versailles did not dazzle him to such an extent that he would have preferred life at the great court to staying in Luneville, or in the countryside isolation of Cirey. The two friends enjoyed such happiness there as human beings can possibly enjoy, and when the death of the Marquise du Chatelet ended this beautiful relationship, it was a devastating blow for Monsieur de Voltaire's feelings, which he needed all his philosphy to endure.

Just at this time, when he needed all the power at his disposal to cope with his pain, he was called to the court of Prussia; the King wished to possess this genius of such rarity and uniqueness.