Voltaire to Frederick the Great - 1769 December 9
No. 7
To the King/
9 December 1769, at Ferney[1]
1. When Thalestris[2] whom the north admired,
2. Visited Arbela’s[3] victor,
3. He gave her a formal ball, a ballet, an opera,
4. And, furthermore, he wrote beautiful verses for her.
5. They both had infinite intelligence,
6. It was a pleasure to hear them, so they say.
7. It was acknowledged that Jupiter only created
8. Women like Thalestris during Alexander’s times.
9. Pausanias, in his Prussiaques[4], says that Alexander carried
10. his love for the fine arts as far as to write poems in
11. the language of the Welches, and he always placed in his
12. verses unusual piquancy, harmony, true ideas,
13. a wide knowledge of men, and that he
14. wrote these verses with unbelievable ease; that those
15. that he made for Thalestris were full of grace and harmony.
16. He adds that his talents greatly astonished his
17. Macedonians and his Thracians who had little knowledge
18. of Greek poetry, and that they learned from other
19. nations how much intelligence their master had, for
20. they only knew him as a brave
21. warrior who governed as well as he fought.
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22. In these days, says Plutarch, there was an
23. old Welch, dwelling in solitude in the vicinity of the
24. Caucassus mountains, who had formerly been at Alexander’s
25. court, and who lived as happily as one
26. could, far from the camp of the conqueror
27. of Arbella and of Basroc[5]. This old dotard often said
28. that he was very vexed at the thought of dying without
29. having paid court once more to the hero of
30. Macedonia.
31. Sire,
32. I have no doubt that you have, at your
33. Court, scholars who have read Plutarch and
34. Xenophon in the library of your
35. new palace[6]; they will be able to show you the
36. Greek passages that I have the honor of quoting to you,
37. and your majesty will see that nothing could be truer.
38. I would give the entire Caucasus mountains to see this
39. Welche for two days at the court of Alexander.
[Shelfmark: Rare f F840, V935 d]
[1] Ferney-Voltaire (Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names ID: 7009178), a French suburb of Geneva, is in the canton of Ain, in the country of Gex, on the Swiss border, to the north of the airport of Geneva-Cointrin. For information about Voltaire and Ferney, see comment.
[2] Thalestris was a (legendary) Amazon queen who is reported to have visited Alexander the Great in Hyrcania in order to conceive a child with him. For more information, see Thalestris.
[3] The battle of Arbela (also known as the battle of Gaugamela) was the site of Alexander's third and decisive victory over the Persians in 331 BC. For more information, see Battle of Arbela.
[4] Here, Voltaire has adapted one line of Racine’s Les Plaideurs, III.iii. Pausanias (c. AD 110 – c. 180) was a Greek traveller and geographer. His Description of Greece is in ten books, each dedicated to some portion of Greece, The second book is focused on Corinthia, in the north-eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula.
[5] Anagram of Rosbac or Rossbach, and relating to Frederick’s victory at the Battle of Rossbach (November 1757). For more information, see Rosbac.
[6] Voltaire refers here to the Sanssouci Palace, the summer palace of Frederick the Great, in Potsdam (near Berlin), which was built between 1745 and 1747. For more information, see Sanssouci Palace.
