Voltaire to Frederick the Great - 1770 March 9
No. 8. to Friedrich der Grosse
Ferney,[1] 9 th March 1770
1. It is too much to have all this fire 2. Which so strongly inspires you,
3. Which shines, which pleases, and which is admired
4. When others have too little of it.
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5. Among humans you have too many advantages
6. Your exploits, your writings
7. Astonish humans, great and wise
8. Who before you are too small.
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9. I had too much hope in my youth,
10. And, in maturity, too many troubles;
11. But in old age where I am
12. Alas! I have too little wisdom.
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13. From France it is said that in our times
14. A few muses have exiled themselves.
15. We do not have too many scholars,
16. We have too few geniuses.
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17. To live and die near you
18. Would have been too much for me to set my sights,
19. And if my fate is barely pleasant
20. It is to it that I want to lash out.
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21. Sire, it is evident that you have too much of everything, and I have too little.
22. Your epistle to Madame de Morian[2] on this subject is charming.
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23. For more than thirty years you have surprised me every
24. day. I can well understand how an idle young Parisian
25. can write pretty French verses when all that he has to
26. do in the morning is to dress himself, but that a king of
27. the North who singly governs some
28. twenty provinces, can effortlessly write poetry à la Chaulieu[3],
29. verses which are both poetical and the poetry of a man
30. of the world, is something for which I cannot account. What?
31. You vanquish us in Thuringia[4] and you write
32. poetry better than we do. This is too much,
33. and you cause me too many regrets
34. to know that I cannot die near your heroic and
35. poetic majesty.
[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 Ferney.
[2] Madame de Morian was a lady at the royal court of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. For information about Frederick II’s epistle, see Madame de Morian.
[4] Allusion to the battle of Rossbach, 5 November 1757. For more information about this battle, see Rossbach.
