Louis La Valliere to Voltaire - 1756 March 1
1 I have received, my dear Voltaire, the sermon that you sent to me
2. and, despite its prevailing sound philosophy, it has inspired in me
3 even more respect for its author than for its morality. One
4 additional impact that it has had on me is my decision
5 to ask you for the greatest mark of friendship that you
6 could give me. I acknowledge that you are almost sixty years old,
7 I believe that you do not have the most robust of health, but
8 I am sure that you have the finest intelligence and the most well-balanced mind;
9 and, should you start a new career under
10 the name of a young man aged fifteen years, and were he
11 to live longer than Fontenelle, you would provide him with the wherewithal to
12 become the most illustrious man of his century. Hence, I do not fear
13 to ask you to send to me psalms embellished with
14 your poetic lines. You alone have been worthy, and are worthy of translating them;
15 you would eclipse Rousseau, you would inspire edification, and you would
16 provide me the opportunity to give the greatest pleasure to Mde \de Pompadour/.
17 It is no longer Merope, Lully or Metastase that we need,
18 but a little bit of David, imitate him, enrich him, I shall admire your
10 work, and I shall not be jealous of it, provided that it is reserved for me,
20 poor sinner, to surpass it with my Betzabée. I
21 shall be happy, and you will add to my satisfaction by
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22 granting me all that I ask of you with utmost entreaty.
23 Grant me an hour a day, do not show them to anyone, and,
24 shortly, I shall turn them into an edition published at the Louvre that will
25 bring as much honor to the author as it will give pleasure to the public. I'll
26 say it again: I am sure that she will be delighted by it, just as I would
27 by knowing that, through you, I can make her so
28 happy. I count on your friendship; you know that we go back
29 a long time; so I await the beginnings of an assured success, soon to come,
30 that I am preparing for you. For this I do not dispense with
31 the royal Merope, nor the vindication of my dear friend
32 Jeane. I could not console myself that a jackass[1] had
33 the honor to deflower her. I heard indeed that it is
34 through pain that one attains pleasures, but through torture,
35 this is truly excessive. Farewell my dear Voltaire, I await
36 news from you with the greatest impatience; you are
37 assured of my sincere friendship, as you can be of my
38 real gratitude as well.
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A Monsieur
Monsieur De Voltaire one of the
forty [members] of the Académie Française
Geneva
FROM VERSAILLES
[1] “Un âne”: “Fig. Homme sans intelligence, esprit fermé.” [“A man without intelligence, closed-minded”] Dictionnaire de la langue française, par É. Littré. https://www.littre.org/definition/âne
