Voltaire, Fritz, and Maupertuis

[mildred_of_midgard]

Voltaire and Fritz initially got on like a house on fire, when all they had to do was write letters raving about how the other one was the greatest writer or prince/king who had ever lived.

Young King Fritz: "Now, as we all know, French lang & lit >>>>>> German lang & lit. Problem is, I myself am a German. I need a Frenchman to bring me up to a higher standard of civilization!"

Voltaire: *is running out of people in Europe he hasn't already alienated*

Fritz: "Come ooooonnn, you know I love you, it'll be great! <3333 Teach me to be French!"

Voltaire: "You know how deeply disillusioned I've been with you ever since you invaded Silesia while the presses were still churning out copies of Anti-Machiavel." *frowny face*

Fritz: *puppy eyes*

Fritz: *offers of $$$$*

Voltaire: "Oh, all right, what could possibly go wrong? Frenemies forever! To Potsdam and beyond!"

Voltaire, under his breath: "As long as he pays the bills, I'll correct his godawful poetry clean his dirty laundry." [The part about the dirty laundry is an actual quote.]

Fritz, under his breath: "Awful human being, brilliant writer. I'll squeeze the orange and throw away the peel once I've got the juice." [The part about the orange is an actual quote, or at least Voltaire said it was.]

Voltaire: *quarrels with more people at Fritz's court than even Fritz has*

Voltaire: *finds out Fritz has been talking shit about him* "I am outraged, I tell you, outraged!"

Voltaire: *fed up with Fritz wasting aka micromanaging his time*

Voltaire: *publishes a pseudonymous tabloid pamphlet suspiciously similar to his later set of tabloid memoirs, in which he endeavors to drag Fritz's name through the mud with accounts of his wanton homosexual lifestyle*

[I finally sorted out my confusion over Voltaire's memoirs: there were two sets! One pseudonymous pamphlet denied by him during his lifetime, one official posthumous memoir. Sheesh, Voltaire.

Btw, this allowed later historians and fans to no-homo Fritz on the grounds that the only evidence for his alleged homosexuality was an estranged Frenchman libeling him. Our Fritz WOULD NEVER! Meanwhile, sensible people continue to notice the vast amounts of independent evidence for Fritz's homoerotic and homoromantic inclinations, irrespective of how far he went in bed with whom or how often.]

Also Voltaire: *engages in all sorts of shady and illegal financial practices in Berlin, gets caught up in a lawsuit, alienates as many people around him as Fritz is currently doing on a grander scale in the lead-up to the Seven Years' War.*

Fritz: *has had it up to HERE with Voltaire*

Voltaire: *has had it up to HERE with Fritz*

Voltaire: *spends his last months in Prussia writing epigrams and poetry about how everyone in Prussia is terrible*

Voltaire: *finally flees the country before everyone strangles him*

5 minutes later...

Fritz: "OMG, you've got that book where I wrote poetry and epigrams about how everyone in Europe is terrible?? Give it back! That does not leave the country! That was for your eyes only! DON'T SHOW ANYONE!"

Fritz: *panic*

Voltaire: "Haha!"

Fritz: *has his agents arrest and manhandle Voltaire in a city outside Prussia where Fritz doesn't actually have the legal authority to do this* "GIVE ME BACK MY BOOK!"

Voltaire: "Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!" [Monty Python quote, for anyone who doesn't recognize it.]

Europe: *does not expect any better from either of them by now*

Europe: *popcorn.gif*

If you're getting the impression that Fritz and Voltaire didn't get along because they were SO MUCH ALIKE, well, that would be the same impression everyone ever has had after hearing this story.

Also, imagine this as my background to reading the Carl August/Goethe summary. "'Be the Voltaire to my Fritz'?? Haha, right, because that worked out so well...Oh. Oh, wow. You guys should be canonized! Sensible adults, who'd a thunk."

Also, I should just add that Voltaire's life was one long string of stories exactly like this in different settings, give or take some details. :P


First, a little background on the memoirs.

Shortly after he and Fritz had their falling out in 1752/1753, an anonymous pamphlet appeared trashing Fritz. Voltaire denied it was him. Then he died in 1778. In 1784, his memoirs appeared, and were immediately translated into English. I can't find a copy of the 1750s pamphlet, but I'm told a lot of passages were reused, making it really clear it was him.

Fritz rolled his eyes and never officially responded to either.

I'm not giving a systematic summary here: just the parts that I have commentary on, and the ones that made me laugh out loud or say "ouch."


After describing FW and Fritz, Voltaire writes,

The world perhaps never beheld a father and son who less resembled each other than these two Monarchs.

Which is interesting, because Fritz and FW are like glass half empty/glass half full: do you want to emphasize the differences or the similarities? I think the picture is incomplete with only one. Grumbkow, who obviously knew both father and son much better than Voltaire, wrote to Seckendorff: "In short, I think there are on this earth no two men quite like them, father and son." (I don't envy anyone who was caught between them, that's for sure.)

Now, remember when FW came home after the escape attempt and immediately started assaulting Wilhelmine and accusing her of having illegitimate children with Katte and so forth? This is Voltaire's account, which nobody believes.

He proceeded to kick her out of a large window, which opened from the floor to the ceiling. The Queen-Mother, who was present at this exploit, with great difficulty saved her, by catching hold of her petticoats as she was making her leap. The Princess received a contusion on her left breast, which remained with her during life, as a mark of paternal affection, and which she did me the honour to shew me.

Voltaire throws shade at Fredersdorf (whom he does not name in this passage, but will name later):

This soldier, who was young, well made, handsome, and played upon the flute, had more ways than one of amusing the royal prisoner. So many fine qualities have made his fortune, and I have since known him, at the same time Valet de Chambre and first Minister, with all the insolence which two such posts may be supposed to inspire.

Slept his way to the top and didn't have the grace to defer to his betters when he got there, in other words.

The Katte, or as Voltaire spells it, "Kat", interlude I dealt with at great length in my textual criticism write-up (see the "textual criticism" tag"), so I'll skip that here.

About Keith, he writes:

Keit [sic; phonetic spelling of the German pronunciation that wasn't all that uncommon at the time], the other confidant,had escaped and fled into Holland; Whither the King dispatched his military messengers to seize him. He escaped merely by a minute, embarked. for Portugal, and, there remained till the death of the most clement Frederic William.

It was not the King's intention to have stopped there; his design was to have beheaded the Prince. He considered that he had three others sons, not one of whom wrote verses [He's only 4 now, but you may be in for a surprise with little "l'autre moi-même," FW] and that they were sufficient to sustain the Prussian grandeur. Measures had been already concerted to make him suffer, as the Czarovitz, eldest son to Peter the Great, had done before.

It is not exceeding clear, from any known laws, human or divine, that a young man should have his head struck off, because he had a wish to travel. But his Majesty had found judges in Prussia, equally as learned and equitable as the Russian expounders of law.

As I recall, Peter, unlike FW, actually got a death sentence verdict for his son out of his court.

About Voltaire's early correspondence with Fritz:

As the King his father, suffered him to have very little to do with the national affairs, or as there rather indeed were no such affairs in a government, the whole business of which was reviews, he employed his leisure in writing to those men of letters in France, who were something known in the world...He treated me as a something divine, and I him as a Solomon. Epithets cost us nothing. They have printed some of these ridiculous things in a collection of my works, and happily they have not printed the thirtieth part of them.

There, there, Voltaire. Celebrity breakups are hard.

Now it's 1740, the trip west to Bayreuth and Strasbourg, and Fritz gives Voltaire a letter containing some poetry he wrote. Voltaire quotes this letter and the verses in it at length, and then concludes,

We may see by this letter, that he was not yet become the best of all possible poets.

BUUUURRRRNNN. Love the Leibniz and Candide throwback, Voltaire.

Then, after Fritz's failed incognito visit to Strasbourg, he and Voltaire met in person for the first time at Cleves (near the Dutch border, which belongs to Prussia during this period).

Now, part of the reason Fritz had to cancel his planned trip to Paris, besides the whole kerfluffle about fake passports and getting arrested, was that he was having a malaria flare-up. (We do have independent evidence of this, not just Voltaire.) So when Voltaire meets him, he reports that Fritz is bedridden with a fever.

I was conducted into his Majesty's apartment, in which I found nothing but four bare walls. By the light of a bougie [candle], I perceived a small truckle bed, of two feet and a half wide, in a closet, upon which lay a little man, wrapped up in a morning gown of blue cloth. It was his Majesty, who lay sweating and shaking, beneath a beggarly coverlet, in a violent ague fit. I made my bow, and began my acquaintance by feeling his pulse, as if I had been his first physician.

And now it's time for major shade-throwing over the Anti-Machiavel. Voltaire's most famous quote is

Had Machiavel a Prince for a pupil, the very first thing he would have advised him to do, would have been so to write. The Prince Royal, however, was not master of so much finesse.

And while Voltaire is printing this book, Fritz is beginning his life of conquest. Oops!

Voltaire: "Um, you might want to rethink the timing of this?"
Fritz: "Okay, okay, stop the presses."
The bookseller: "It's too late!...Unless you pay me a lot of money, that is."
Voltaire:

The bookseller demanded so much money, that his Majesty, who was not, in the bottom of his heart, vexed to see himself in print, was better pleased to be so for nothing, than to pay for not being so.

Then comes another famous Voltaire quote, about the death of MT's dad:

Charles the Sixth died, in the month of October 1740, of an indigestion, occasioned by eating champignons [mushrooms], which brought on an apoplexy, and this plate of champignons changed the destiny of Europe.

And then,

It was presently evident, that Frederic the third, King of Prussia, was not so great an enemy of Machiavel as the Prince Royal appeared to have been.

Frederic the third, hmm? I guess FW is Frederic the second? First I've heard of that. [ETA: Like many things in our fandom that finally got an answer, this one is explained here.]

Then Voltaire quotes and comments on an interesting passage from Fritz's memoirs, which he sent to Voltaire for correction:

Here follows one of the curious paragraphs, in the introduction to these annals; which I, in preference, carefully transcribed, as a thing unique in its kind:

"Ambition, interest, and a desire to make the world speak of me, vanquished all, and war was determined on."

From the time that the conquerors, or fiery spirits that would be conquerors first were, to the present hour, I believe he is the only one who has ever done himself thus much justice. Never man, perhaps, felt reason more forcibly, or listened more attentively to his passions; but this mixture of a philosophic mind, and a disorderly imagination, have ever composed his character.

It is much to be regretted that I prevailed on him to omit these passages, when I afterwards corrected his works; a confession so uncommon, should have passed down to posterity, and have served to shew upon what motives the generality of wars are founded. We authors, poets, historians, and academician declaimers, celebrate these fine exploits; but here is a monarch who performs and condemns them.

Keep in mind, Voltaire is reeeeeallly disillusioned over the Silesian invasion. And he kept a running list of all of Fritz's other abuses of power, and his satires (yes, even as Fritz didn't want Voltaire satirizing other people, Voltaire didn't like Fritz satirizing other people).

Oh, I should add that Fritz's retort to Voltaire's disillusionment was to say that if Voltaire had an army, he would use it to make war on his multitudinous enemies in the French literary world. I believe this 1000000%.

So remember when Maupertuis was summoned to join Fritz in Silesia (when he and Algarotti and Peter Keith were all twiddling their thumbs in Berlin), and he got captured? This was Mollwitz, btw, Fritz's first battle, where he was talked into leaving the field while the Prussians were losing, and then one of his generals turned it around and won, much to Fritz's delight and dismay. Here is Voltaire's account:

Maupertuis, who hoped to make his fortune in a hurry, was in the suit of the Monarch this compaign [sic], imagining that the King would at least find him a horse. But this was not the royal custom. Maupertuis bought an ass for two ducats, on the day of battle, and fled with all his might after his Majesty on ass-back. This steed, however, was presently distanced, and Maupertuis was taken and stripped by the Austrian hussars.

That's got to be a record amount of shade packed into one paragraph. On the other hand, they're giving him quite a bit of material to work with.

Then, after Fritz wins the First Silesian War, he goes home to Berlin to beautify it. Voltaire actually has some nice things to say about it. But he mostly constructs it as a compare-and-contrast between Berlin under FW and Berlin under Fritz, and so he comes up with this amazing gem:

Several people had furniture in their houses, and some even wore shirts, for in the former reign such things were little known; they were sleeves and fore-bodies only, tied on with pack thread, and the reigning Monarch had been so educated.

Then Voltaire's sent to spy on Fritz for the French. This is all top-secret, of course. But they have to tell Émilie Du Châtelet, because she's super upset. (Does not like the misogynistic King of Prussia, does not like that he keeps trying to lure Voltaire away from her. My secondary sources say Fritz veered between flattering her to try to get on Voltaire's good side, so as to lure him away, and saying she wasn't good enough for him and no she can't come to Berlin. It's really indistinguishable from a love triangle.) Furthermore, Voltaire said they had to agree to let her read all the top-secret correspondence. Go, Émilie.

When he comes to Berlin, he finds that Fritz's living arrangements are very spartan:

Marcus Aurelius and Julian, the two greatest men among the Romans, and apostles of the Stoics, lay not on a harder bed.

Then he follows it with the famous "Fritz was not only a homosexual but a PASSIVE homosexual ZOMG!!!11!!!" quote.

As soon as his Majesty was dressed and booted, Stoicism for a few moments gave place to Epicurism. Two or three of his favourites entered: these were either Lieutenants, Ensigns, Pages, Heiduques, or young Cadets. Coffee was brought in, and he to whom the handkerchief was thrown, remained ten minutes tête-à-tête with his Majesty. Things were not carried to the last extremity, because while Prince, in his father's life-time, he had been very ill treated, and ill cured, in his amours de passade. He could not play principal, and was obliged to content himself with the second.

Then we see some not-even-phonetic spelling: Fudesdoff, and Fridesdorff, "who was at once his High Steward, Great Cup-bearer, and First Pantler."

Another famous quote:

In a word, Frederic lived without religion, without a council, and without a court.

Oh, look, it's freedom of conscience and the penis!

(Earlier write-up on freedom of conscience and the penis:

In addition to homosexuality being a capital offense, so was bestiality. There are at least two accounts of Friedrich refusing to enforce this sentence against someone who'd had sex with a four-legged animal. In one case, it was a member of the cavalry who'd had sex with his horse. Fritz's punishment was to put him in the infantry, which, as it was both a demotion (the cavalry being the more prestigious of the two) and got him away from horses, I consider quite a neat little solution.

On the other occasion, Friedrich is supposed to have written, and you're going to love this, "In this country, there is freedom of conscience and penis."

Sadly, our source on this is Voltaire, which, Voltaire + things stated or implied about Fritz and sex =/= reliable journalism, so unless there's another source corroborating this anecdote, I find it suspect, but, you know, I totally believe it anyway. :P If he didn't literally say it in those words, I feel the message was received regardless.)

Hilarious anecdote depicting Fritz as A+++ troll:

A Minister near Stettin, thought this indulgence exceedingly scandalous, and let fall some expressions in a sermon upon Herod, which glanced at the King; he was therefore summoned to appear before the Consistory at Potzdam, though in fact there was no more a Consistory at Court than there was a Mass. The poor man came. The King put on a band and surplice. M.d'Argens, Author of the Jewish Letters, and one Baron de Polnitz [[personal profile] cahn, the Hohenzollern's go-to guy for anecdotes], who had changed his religion three or four times, dressed themselves up in the same manner. A folio volume of Bayle's Dictionary [controversial and influential work of the Enlightenment that critiqued religion] was placed upon the table by way of a Bible, and the culprit was introduced by two grenadiers, and set before these three Ministers of the Gospel.

My brother, said the King, I demand, in the name of the most High God, who the Herod was concerning whom you preached? He who slew the Children, replied the simple Priest. But was this Herod the first ? said the King; for you ought to know there have been several Herods. The Priest was silent ; he could not answer this question. How! continued the King have you dared to preach about Herod, and are ignorant both of him and his family? You are unworthy of the holy ministry. We shall pardon you for this time, but know we shall excommunicate you if ever you dare hereafter preach against any one whom you do not know,

They then delivered his sentence and pardon to him, signed by three ridiculous names invented on purpose. We shall go to-morrow to Berlin, added the King, and we will demand forgiveness for you of our brotherhood. Do not fail to come and find us out. Accordingly the Priest went, and enquired for these three labourers in the gospel vineyard all over Berlin, where he was laughed at, but the King, who had more humour than liberality, forgot to reimburse him for the expences of his journey.

Voltaire says Fritz never paid back any of the money he borrowed as Crown Prince either:

Like as Louis XII would not revenge the affronts of the Duke d'Orleans, neither would the King of Prussia remember the debts of the Prince Royal.

We knew that.

Voltaire doesn't like Doris Ritter, the young woman who used to play music with Fritz right before the escape attempt, and whom FW took a hugely disproportionate revenge on:

A tall, meagre figure, very like one of the Sibyls, without the least appearance of meriting to be publicly whipped for a Prince.

Now he tells an anecdote about one of FW's giants, who attempted desertion, then when caught, said the only thing he regretted was not stabbing such a tyrant as FW. So he had his nose and ears cut off and was sent to Spandau.

Voltaire decides to take advantage of a moment when Fritz expresses gratitude for his poetical efforts, and ask for this guy to be released. He put his request into poetry.

The request was something daring, but one may say what one will poetically. His Majesty promised remission and some months after even had the bounty to send the poor gentleman in question to the Hospital, at three pence a day, which favour he had refused to the Queen his mother, but she, in all probability, had asked only in prose.

A few years later, Fritz manages to lure Voltaire back to his court, this time as a permanent resident. (Poor Émilie has just died prematurely in childbirth.)

Voltaire writes:

Who might resist a Monarch, a Hero, a Poet, a Musician, a Philosopher, who pretended too to love me, and whom I thought I also loved...My Frederic-Alcina*, who saw my brain was already a little discorded, redoubled the potions that I might be totally inebriated...A Mistress could not have written more tenderly.

* You two with your love of opera probably know this, but I had to look it up: Alcina is a sorceress in a 1728 Handel opera of the same name, taken originally from Orlando furioso (which you can tell I haven't read).

Then Fritz writes Voltaire a letter, trying to convince him to stay.

...a letter such as few of their Majesties write: it was the finishing glass to compleat my drunkenness. His wordy protestations were still stronger than his written ones. He was accustomed to very singular demonstrations of tenderness to younger favourites than I, and forgetting for a moment I was not of their age, and had not a fine hand, he seized it and imprinted a kiss; I took his, returned his salute, and signed myself his slave.

Then it's more squabbling with the members of the Academy, surprisingly boring and rarely witty. (See my Voltaire vs. Maupertuis write-up below.) Then he leaves.

Leaving my palace of Alcina, I went to pass a month with the Dutchess of Saxe-Gotha, the best of Princesses, full of gentleness, discretion, and equanimity, and who, God be thanked, did not make verses.

Then the Frankfurt episode happens. To refresh your memory, he has a book of poetry written by Fritz which satirizes everyone in Europe, a book that's only meant to be read by a select circle, and Fritz is very afraid that Voltaire might let that book fall into the wrong hands. (Like, pretty much any hands would be the wrong hands for this book.)

So Fritz has Freitag, the Prussian Resident in Frankfurt, get the book back from Voltaire. But Voltaire says he doesn't have the book, he'll have to send for it from Leipzig. Fine, says the Freitag, but you're under house arrest until you do.

Then Voltaire reproduces the letter that Freitag gave him, which the English translator represents thus:

Montseer, so soon as shawl dey great pack come ouf Leipsic, mit de werks ouf poesy be given mit me, you shawl go ous were you do please. Given at Franckfurt de vurst of June, 1753. -Freitag, Resident ouf de King mine master."

At the bottom of which I signed, "Good, vor dey vurks ouf poesy de King your master." -With which the Resident was well satisfied.

As Voltaire reports it, he hands over the book and other requested items as soon as he gets them, then attempts to leave. But Freitag won't let him leave, and roughs up not only Voltaire, but also his niece and lover Madame Denis, who had a passport from the King of France, and moreover, never had corrected the King of Prussia's verses.

And then they were imprisoned for 12 days, and had to pay to get out, and many of their belongings were taken.

One need not wish to pay dearer for the poesy [italicized] of the King of Prussia. I lost about as much as it had cost him to send for me and take lessons, and we were quits at parting.

Frankfurt was not in Prussia! Frankfurt was a free city of the HRE! This was kind of a scandal! (Of course, given the two parties involved, rather than get worked up about it, most of Europe decided they thoroughly deserved each other and broke out the popcorn for munching as events unfolded, because this was better than a play.)

Now, Fritz's version of events, as recounted to Catt, goes thus:

"I know that Voltaire complained loudly and breathed fire against me in all the little courts which he passed through ; but I assure you that this blockhead of a Freytag exceeded my orders. I asked him simply to get back for me my book of poems, and the bumpkin demanded it with a harshness of which I disapproved. I know the regard which is due to distinguished men of letters ; how should I have been wanting in this regard with one who surpasses them all! Voltaire lied in his throat when he said that I was responsible for the bad treatment he suffered at Frankfort. He has been tremendously sulky towards me for it, and, in spite of all his cajoleries, I do not trust him very greatly yet."

This alternation of trust and mistrust which often made its appearance when Voltaire and several other people were concerned always struck me particularly. Left to the calm of reason, the King was distrustful of the tricks of which M. de Voltaire was capable, but allowing himself to be carried away by an imagination excited and flattered by the dazzling images and the delicate praise presented to him, he gave himself up without reserve to the Patriarch of Literature.

Several years later, during the Seven Years' War, there's another episode that we see both through Voltaire's eyes and Catt's.

Fritz writes a satire on the French, recounting how he totally kicked their butts at Rossbach (it was such a humiliating defeat and so one-sided that Voltaire snarks that Prince Heinrich was the only Prussian wounded that day), and shows it to Catt.

Catt: You're my boss, so I can't speak my mind too frankly here, but...don't you think it's a little harsh and the French might take it badly?
Fritz: What? No! How is it too harsh? It's perfect. I'm going to send it to Voltaire. It's a satire, he's gonna love it.
Catt *thinking*: Oh, thank god, something I can work with.
Catt: The same Voltaire you're always calling a monkey and saying is the most malicious trickster figure to ever walk the pages of legend? Don't you think he might...do something malicious?
Fritz: Hmm. You could be right. Okay, I won't send it.
Catt: A wise choice, Your Majesty.
Fritz *sotto voce*: While you're in the room.
Catt: *leaves the room*
Fritz: *sends poem*

Meanwhile, Voltaire, now living IN FRANCE, receives a copy of this poem. Per his memoirs:

Voltaire: Oh, fuck. This package has clearly been opened a number of times in transit and spied on before it reached me. Everyone knows I used to correct Fritz's verse; they're going to think I had something to do with this. In France, where I live. FUCK YOU, FRITZ.

The remainder of the memoirs are largely politics and people who are not Fritz (and Fritz's emotional state during the early years of the Seven Years' War, when he was alternating between euphoria and depression in sync with victories, defeats, and family deaths), and the only quotable passage I spotted was:

For this purpose [Maria Theresa] negociated with the Empress of Russia and the King of Poland, that is, in quality of Elector of Saxony, for nobody negociates with the Poles.

Poor Poles.

And with that, I conclude the Voltaire memoirs.

Re the Frankfurt affair, Carlyle reports that an earlier 19th century historian, Varnhagen von Ense, looked into the Frankfurt affair and found a million holes in Voltaire's version of events. Among other things, the dialect reproduced by Voltaire is not in found in actual letters by Freytag, which read like unremarkable French and German. What Ense finds is that:

1) Fritz was genuinely not involved; he just told Fredersdorf to get the book back.

2) Fredersdorf wrote a very unclear order asking Freytag for "Skripturen", which could have been anything, instead of Oeuvre de Poesies. This failure to clarify which writings led to a lot of confusion. "Eichel would have been much clearer!" Carlyle laments.

3) Freytag did exceed orders.

4) Voltaire was crazy. (Lol, we know.)

19th century historians trying to exonerate Fritz the Infallible? Idk. But that's the story as I have it.



Two write-ups of the drama between Voltaire and Maupertuis in 1752-1753 that led to the falling out of Fritz and Voltaire, Voltaire's departure from Prussia, and the fact that Fritz and Voltaire, though they resumed their correspondence for another twenty years, never met in person again.

Write-up 1

König had attacked some principle of physics that Maupertuis considered one of his most important contributions, and furthermore said that Maupertuis didn't come up with it at all, but Leibniz did. A debate then ensued over whether the fragment König produced and claimed was written by Leibniz was real or a forgery.

Things escalated when Voltaire took König's side and attacked Maupertuis in a satire, and Fritz said, in effect, "Stop satirizing everyone at my court; only I'm allowed to do that!" and Voltaire said, "Fuck that, I'm a professional satirist! Satirize ALL the peoples!" and Fritz said, "Fuck you and the monkey you rode in on, and also give me back my book of satires I wrote about other people or I cut you." And the rest was history.

1752-1753, ladies and gentlemen. As we know, Algarotti skipped town in 1753 to avoid getting caught up in all this drama. Wise man. Also, total tangent, but it's hilarious to read in Wilhelmine's memoirs, ca. 1745, "My brother and I used to satirize everyone we knew as teenagers, but I outgrew that," and then several years later, Voltaire: "Women are better than men. Case in point: Wilhelmine, me, Fritz."

Anyway, my modern source concludes, "In the final analysis, neither of the protagonists prevailed, since most historians of science give the most credit for developing the principle of minimum action to Euler."

Write-up 2

In response to selenak's request for the background on *why* Voltaire and Maupertuis were at each other's throats:

Okay, so first of all, every time Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet had a falling out, she had an affair with Maupertuis. Though this didn't initially cause problems between Voltaire and Maupertuis, it probably didn't help when they arose later on.

But what really doesn't help is that in 1740, immediately after Fritz becomes king, Maupertuis promptly gets invited to Berlin and offered the presidency of the academy. Voltaire does not get an offer to join the court at this time, though he visits.

Voltaire doesn't end up joining Fritz's court until 1750, after Émilie is dead, at which point Maupertuis still has the job he wants and Voltaire's not getting it.

Not long after arriving, Voltaire starts engaging in a money-making scheme that is not terribly legal and involves defrauding the Prussian state. The guy he swindles takes him to court. Voltaire is convinced, fairly or not, that Maupertuis is the one who convinced him to seek legal recourse. So he hates on Maupertuis some more. Like good academics, they squabble over things like whose friends get desired appointments at the Academy.

Fritz is not really pleased at Voltaire's behavior, either the trash-talking of everyone at his court or the way Voltaire's financial dealings hit him in his pocket. He tries to blow it off at first, but he starts confiding to people that while Maupertuis may not be as exciting as Voltaire, he's a hell of a lot easier to live with. So Fritz, who with his control issues *cannot* just leave them to fight their own battles, starts taking Maupertuis' side in their conflicts.

The more he interferes, the more things escalate. The final battle goes thusly. König is a mathematician at the academy who used to be Émilie's tutor (until she passed him).

Maupertuis: I have this awesome science idea! The principle of minimum action.
König: You humbug, you stole that idea from Leibniz. Here, I have a fragment in his hand showing that he came up with it first.
Maupertuis: Forgery!
Academy: *votes*
Academy: Forgery!
König: *is kicked out*
Voltaire: You mess with my friend König, you mess with me.
Voltaire: *writes sarcastic pamphlets attacking Maupertuis*
Future historians: You're both wrong!

Voltaire: *writes anonymous pamphlets about how gay Fritz is and has them circulated in places like London and Amsterdam*

Fritz: At my court, everyone is honest and nobody satirizes anybody that's a royal privilege. Voltaire, if you want to stay, you have to sign the following agreement:

I promise His Majesty that for all the time that he has the grace to lodge me in his palace I shall write against no man; not the government of France, against its ministers; or against other sovereigns, or against famous men of letters towards whom I shall render the respect which is due; I shall in no way abuse the letters of His Majesty; and I shall behave in a manner which is suitable for a man of letters who has the honour of being a chamberlain to His Majesty, and who lives among honest men. [mildred's note: I literally choked reading that last phrase.]

Voltaire: *signs with one hand, writes even better satirical pamphlets with the other*

The crowning glory of his satirical pamphlets is Histoire du Docteur Akakia et du Natif de St Malo, in which "Doctor Akakia" is a thinly disguised Maupertuis.

Fritz gets so furious that he burns the pamphlet in front of Voltaire's window, then regrets it because enlightened monarch and all that.

So then Fritz starts writing his own diatribes defending Maupertuis and attacking Voltaire, and publishing them "anonymously." You know, when the monarch writes an essay a Yuletide fic and you all pretend you don't know who wrote it.

Voltaire: *writes another pamphlet*
Fritz: *writes another anonymous pamphlet*
Voltaire: See, he's such a good writer he doesn't need me to instruct him anymore. [Seriously, they crack-ship themselves.]
Voltaire: *writes another pamphlet refuting the one by Fritz that he had praised*

At this point, things have gotten so tense between Fritz and Voltaire and their passive aggressive pamphlet writing and praising that Voltaire isn't having fun any more, and he decides to leave Prussia forever.

But first he denies that he's responsible for that pamphlet circulating in London and Amsterdam (which has now made its way to Paris) talking about how GAY Fritz is. Fritz does not believe him, but decides not to refute the pamphlet, possibly to take the moral high ground, and more likely because no one would believe him, and it would open up the way to some really awkward questions.

But of course, Voltaire can't just claim innocence. He also has to accuse Maupertuis of writing it.

Now, the one thing Fritz and Voltaire had in common was the way they would write things attacking other people and then assign authorship to someone else. We've seen the time when Fritz wrote something offensive in Voltaire's name in hopes the French would persecute him, and he'd have to come to Prussia, and Voltaire found out (and several years later agreed to come to Prussia anyway).

On Voltaire's side, there's one hilarious anecdote in Catt's memoirs where Fritz tells Catt that Voltaire wrote some verse attacking the Marquis d'Argens, then showed it to d'Argens and said Algarotti had written it. Then Voltaire went to Algarotti and said d'Argens was saying the most terrible things about Algarotti and was really upset with Algarotti, and that Voltaire had no idea why, but he thought Algarotti should know.

Then Algarotti pretended to be upset with d'Argens, but as soon as Voltaire was gone, Algarotti went and talked to d'Argens, and d'Argens told him about the verse Voltaire had shown him, and Algarotti and d'Argens became BFFs and decided never to trust anything Voltaire said ever. Wise men that they were.

Anyway, now it's 1753 and Voltaire and Fritz have had it with each other, so Voltaire leaves Prussia, and now he's free to write as much as he wants against Maupertuis, and to make sure *everybody* reads his Doctor Akakia pamphlet. Which he does.

In sum, I don't for a moment believe I have the full story, but I haven't found a non-petty motive in any of the accounts of I've read for Voltaire to start attacking Maupertuis like that. From all accounts I have, it just reads like academic politics, which escalated because it started out a fight between two middleweights, König and Maupertuis, and ended up a bout between the two heavyweights, Voltaire and Fritz. Who *could not* resist getting involved.