Autograph letter signed from Voltaire to Henri Lambert d’Herbigny, marquis de Thibouville, written from Potsdam and dated 24 October 1750.
Detailed Summary:
Voltaire writes that not only is he a defector, but he is also a lazy man. He apologises for this laziness by saying that he has been working on an Italian opera of the tragedy of Semiramis (Rome sauvée) and on correcting almost all of his works. He also notes that he has wasted time learning what little German it takes to avoid missing out on a trip, which he adds is quite difficult at his age. He writes that the recipient will find it ridiculous that at the age of 56 the author of La Henriade would decided to want to speak German to servants in cabaret, but adds that the think in that manner would be to reproach him more harshly than he deserves. Voltaire writes that his ‘transmigration’ has cost his heart a great deal but that she has such reasonable, legitimate, and respectable motives that noone can blame him for complaining about no longer being in France. He adds that he hopes to have the happiness of embracing the recipient at the end of November and writes the the recipient and himself were made to run fields together, like old troubadours, with Voltaire building a theater and putting on plays wherever he finds himself. He notes that is is a pleasant thing to have found a prince and a princess of Prussia of Mademoiselle Gausin’s stature, but concludes that Mademoiselle Gausin is superior to the princess. Voltaire then returns to his attempts to learn German, remarking that ‘German is for soldiers and for horses; it is only necessary for the road, before noting that he is flattered by the number of people brought to him in Koenigsberg who know his verses by heart and who do not try to poke fun at him because they aren’t jealous of him. In the concluding section of the letter, Voltaire says that he will not give any details about the life he leads with the King, but reveals that it is a ‘philosopher’s paradise’. He writes: ‘It is Ceasar, it’s Marc Aurèle, it’s Julien, it’s sometimes the Abbé de Chaulieu, with whom we sup; it’s the charm of retirement, it’s the freedome of the countryside with all the little comforts of life that a lord of a castle who is a king can procure for his humble guests.’
The pages feature an additional horizontal fold line. There is a small stain in the lower right-hand corner of f.1r. The iron gall ink used to write the letter has caused some damage to the paper on line 12 of f.1r.
Materiality Keywords:
Decorations:
Undecorated
Additions:
A note in a second hand has been added in the upper left-hand corner of f.1r, providing details of the manuscript’s contents and creation. This note is signed ‘LS. Augur[?]’. [999]