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USC Digital Voltaire

Frederick the Great to Voltaire - 1742 February 3

To M. de Voltaire
     E
1.                  My dear Voltaire, the demon which has
2.                  possessed me until now has led me to Olmütz to
3.                  rectify the matters that, it is said, the other allies have entangled.
4.                  I do not know what will happen; but I do know indeed that
5.                  my star is too much of a wanderer. What can you expect
6.                  from a brain where there is nothing but hay, oats and
7.                  chaff? I think that right now the only rimes that I shall compose will end
8.                  in ain and eïe.
9.                                    Allow for this tempest to calm down.
10.               Wait until in Berlin, on the ruins of Mars,
11.               Peace brings back the fine arts,
12.               To increase the sounds of my tender musette[2];
13.                                 The end of the fortunes of war
14.               Must impose silence on the sound of the trumpet.
15.               I send you afar perhaps; however, there is nothing
16.               to do now, and from a bad payer you must take
17.               what you can get.
18.                                 I am now reading or rather devouring your Age of Louis
19.               the Great[3]. If you love me, send me what you have
20.               added subsequently in this work; it is my sole consolation,
21.               my relaxation, and my recreation. You who only work
22.               from choice and genius, have pity on a political laborer

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23.               who only works from necessity.
24.                                 Should one have foreseen, dear Voltaire, that
25.               an infant of the muses was destined to move
26.               the great wheel of events in Europe
27.               jointly with a dozen serious fools
28.               who are called great politicians? Yet it is an authentic fact,
29.               and one that is not very honorable
30.               for Providence. In this regard, this reminds me again of the
31.               tale about a priest to whom a peasant spoke
32.               about the Lord God with idiotic veneration: 'Come,
33.               come,' said the good vicar, 'you imagine
34.               more than there is; I who sell him, and
35.               by the dozens, know his true value '.
36.                                 Usually, the general public has a
37.               superstitious idea regarding the great revolutions that
38.               occur in the civil State; but when one is behind
39.               the scenes, one knows that, for the most part,
40.               the most magical scenes are driven by
41.               common effects, and by vile rogues
42.               who would only attract the indignation of the public if
43.               they were seen in their natural state.
44.                                 Trickery, bad faith and
45.               duplicity are unfortunately the dominant characteristics
46.               of most men who are at
47.               the head of nations, and who should set a good example.
48.               The study of the human heart

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49.               in those kinds of subjects is a most humiliating thing; it makes me
50.               regret a thousand times my dear solitude, the arts, my
51.               friends, and my independence. Farewell, dear Voltaire;
52.               Perhaps one day I shall regain all that is lost
53.               to me now. I am with all the feelings
54.               you can imagine, your faithful friend.
55.                                 signed federic

[Rare fF840 V935 d]

[1] Olmütz is the German name for present-day Olomouc (East central Czech Republic), in Moravia, on the Morava River (a tributary of the Danube). For more information, see Olmütz.

[2] A musette was a type of small bagpipe played with bellows, common in the French court in the 17th–18th centuries and in later folk music. See “Musette” in Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Science des Arts et des Métiers. Genève: Pellet 1778, vol 22, pp. 597-601.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-16690
Description and Image for “Musette”:
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Musette_de_cour

[3] For more information, see Le Siècle de Louis XIV.

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1. 1740 Frederick ascends the throne of Prussia upon the death of his father Frederick William. He abandons peaceful pursuits to make his place in the geopolitical intrigue of 18th-century Europe. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (1685-1740) dies leaving his daughter Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (1717-1780) as heir to both the Empire and the House of Hapsburg. Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, and France all repudiate her claim as Holy Roman Empress. Frederick invades Silesia starting the War of the Austrian Succession. Emilie du Châtelet (1706-1749) publishes her Institutions de Physique. Her collaboration and romantic involvement with Voltaire is well-known and lasts for most of her adult life.
2. 1741 Prussia consists of scattered territories across central Europe with few significant allies save for Great Britain. Sensing weakness in the Austrian Empire, Frederick deceives Habsburg Queen Maria Theresa to allow his armies to occupy Lower Silesia in exchange for protection from France, Spain, and Bavaria. He proceeds to invade key areas, forcing Maria Theresa to cede almost all of Silesia to Prussia. First performance of Mahomet, a play about religious fanaticism.
3. 1742
12. 1745 Frederick defeats both Austrian and Saxon forces in three major battles to hold on to Silesia. Frederick commissions the architect Hans Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699-1753) to build the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam. Jean-Philippe Rameau’s (1683-1764) opera-ballet La princesse de Navarre (text from Voltaire’s play) is performed in Versailles in the Théâtre du château. Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (1721-1764) is introduced to the royal court of Versailles and becomes the chief mistress of King Louis XV. She is henceforth known as Madame de Pompadour. At her urging, the king appoints Voltaire Royal Historiographer of France, a title bestowed upon him as a result of his histories of both Louis XIV and the Swedish King Charles II. Francis I, François Étienne, (1708-1765) becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
13. 1746
14. 1747
16. 1749 Denis Diderot publishes his Lettre sur les aveugles, a treatise arguing for the notion of "thinking matter" (following La Mettrie) and demonstrating that the “argument by design” is unconvincing. He is incarcerated in the Vincennes fortress, later to be released on Voltaire’s behest. Émilie du Châtelet completes her translation and commentary of Newton’s Principia Mathematica. It will be published posthumously in 1759. Voltaire returns to Paris when Mme du Châtelet dies this year.
21. 1752
23. 1755 Voltaire moves to Geneva, where he purchases Les Délices, accompanied by his niece Madame Denis, Marie Louise Mignot (1712–1790), who remains with him for the rest of his life. The Great Earthquake of Lisbon occurs on All Saints Day (November 1st). This historical event will have lasting philosophical influence for deism’s position on the problem of natural evil and the ontological unacceptability to the idea of an omnipotent God.
26. 1757 Voltaire acts as unofficial diplomatic intermediary between France and Prussia after the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756. Robert-François Damiens (1715-1757) attempts to assassinate King Louis XV. The Holy Roman Empire declares war on Prussia. In the Battle at Prague, Frederik beats the army of the Holy Roman Empire. However, at the Battle at Kolin in Bohemia, the Austrian army beats Prussia and three months later occupies Berlin for one night. The city is ransomed for 2000,000 thalers.
27. 1758
32. 1763
33. 1764
42. 1767
46. 1770
55. 1774 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) publishes his novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. His play Götz von Berlichingen is premiered in Berlin. Both are definitive works of the Storm and Stress period of German literature. Louis XV dies and his grandson becomes Louis XVI. Publication of Voltaire’s Le Taureau blanc, loosely based on the Greek mythological tale of Europa and the bull. In Voltaire’s tale the Bible is put on the same level as the myths from Ovid and various biblical teachings are ridiculed.
57. 1775 Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799) stages his play Le Barbier de Séville at the Comédie-Française. Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) stages his opera Iphigénie en Aulide at the Salle du Palais-Royal in Paris The premiere sparks a huge controversy demonstrating the Enlightenment’s preference for classicism in music and the arts, with its emphasis on balance and clarity of form, over the ostentation and ornateness of baroque music and art. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other writers associated with the Encyclopédie side with the aesthetic ideals of classicism.
59. 1778 Voltaire returns to Paris in February. He sits for the sculptor Houdon. He attends a meeting of the Académie Française. He is present at the Comédie Française for a triumphal performance of his tragedy Irène. Taken ill he dies on 30 May, one month after his initiation into Freemasonry. He cannot be buried in consecrated ground, and his body is smuggled out of Paris by night and interred at Scellières, in Champagne. Louis XVI declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
63. 1785
64. 1786

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