Émilie Tripled: Three reviews and some issues analyzed

[selenak]

Lauren Gunderson: Emilie. La Marquise du Chatelet defends her life tonight.

Fabulous play, of which I had seen excerpts on Youtube, and which I've finally had the chance to read. Gunderson excells at witty dialogue, she does manage to make the main scientific issues of Émilie's life comprehensible to non-scientists, and while providing ample room for Émilie's love life avoids the trap fall of biopics and bio dramas about female characters, which end up all too often are all about the romance and utterly fail to show what made female character X famous, and what drove her. Not so here. She thanks Judith Zinsser in the preface and mostly follows the outlinesof Zinssers biography, though not so much in the Voltaire characterisation. Her Voltaire is flawed and male ego is a big reason for his clashing with Émiilie re: Newton vs Leipniz and then taking up with Denis, but at the same time, Gunderson's drama does present him as sincerely loving Émilie throughout the story. It helps, of course, that she's a playwright and he's a witty character. (Notable the only one other than Émilie herself who isn't played by the three actors - "Soubrette", "Gentleman", "Madame" - who take over the roles of everyone else at different points in the drama.)


Judith Zinnser: Émilie du Chatelet: Daring genius of the Enlightenment.

Mostly I agree with cahn's take. It's extremely informative and well researched in terms of Émilie and her world, though there's the occasional glitch an editor should/could have spotted, as when Zinsser, reporting on what the Marquis du Chatelet was doing in the 1740s, says he was busy fighting for King and Country in the Austrian War of Succession against "Prussia and England". Prussia was, of course, an ally of France in the Austrian War of Succession, and the Marquis would have been fighting against Austria (and England). (BTW, Austrian Trenck does mention him briefly and approvingly as a worthy opponent when talking about conquering Straßburg.) I learned a few fascinating details unknown to me, like Louise Gottsched (wife of Gottsched the language defender and important Enlightenment figure in her own right) writing about Émilie, which I must remember to check. Zinsser also is good at pointing out several of the anecdotes about Émilie being just that, anecdotes, and unverifiable, and at giving source citations. However, in her laudable zeal of presenting Émilie as her own woman, not Voltaire's love interest, and arguing against all those years of one sided Voltaire idolisation by biographers (that is, by pro Voltaire biographers - he had of course his enemies writing about him from his life time onwards though for reasons having nothing to do with Émilie), I find she ends up going to the other extreme and simply asssuming the worst with just about everything Voltaire ever said about Émilie.



For example, the front page picture of his book about Newton (the one he'd already been working on when falling in love with Émilie but which hugely benefited from her explaining and beta-reading and debating), which Gunderson reprints in the appendix of her play, so I could countercheck it against Zinsser's description. Now, these kind of allegorical pictures, usually meant as an indication what the book is about, were hugely popular at the time. The one of Voltaire's "Elements de la philosophie de Newton" ('Amsterdam, 1738) shows Newton in the upper left sitting on a cloud with the globe in his hand, the light beam going from him to Émilie (upper right), looking at Newton and holding a mirror, with the mirror reflecting the light downwards to Voltaire (bottom left) , or rather, on the manuscript he's writing, not on his figure directly. The symbolism seems pretty obvious to me - Èmilie illluminating Newton for Voltaire - and also the respect (Émilie is up in the heaven with Newton, and note she's looking back at him, not Voltaire). But for Zinsser, the entire picture is a subtle put down and denigration, which she sees as interpreting Émilie "only" as muse, not as scientist in her own right (bear in mind this is before Émilie starts to publish). And thus it continues. Voltaire referring to Émilie as "Madame Newton du Chatelet" in a letter? Can't be a compliment, it's a put down. And so forth. The thing is, Voltaire isn't subtle when he's quarrelling with people. And when he argued with Émilie about Leipniz and Newton, the whole world knew it because he published an essay about it. So you really don't have to look for hidden messages. (This goes as far as Zinsser speculating that Cunegonde in Candide is yet another Voltairian put down of Émilie. As far as I know, no one else ether thought that Cunegonde (short, blonde, on the voluptous side in her looks, German noblewoman and parody of romantic love interests and damsel in distress) was in any way inspired by Émiliie. She#s a parody of a sentimental novel heroine as Candide himself is the parody of a naive sentimental novel hero. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.)

Zinsser by accepting the different dating of Émilie's letters to Saint-Lambert and her emphasis on his grief after Émilie's death attempts to rescue him from his himbo reputation which she says he owes to incensed Voltaire and Rousseau fans (because Saint-Lambert's post Émilie lover was the woman Rousseau couldn't get). With her so far, but I note she doesn't mention something which I thought spoke well of Saint-Lambert and Voltaire when I came across it in Orieux' Voltaire biography, to wit, that these two remained in contact through the years after Émilie's death, to the point that they got in a quarrel with Rousseau and his adlatus Clement together during the Ferney years (Voltaire being Voltaire, of course he couldn't resist jumping to Saint-Lambert's aide when Clement attacked the later in print) , and Saint-Lambert was among the Academie Francaise members greeting Voltaire when he came to Paris in his last months of life, telling him he'd been elected honorary president. Now honestly, given the zillions of correspondants Voltaire had (he wrote so many letters in his life that they still haven't all been printed yet - those still existing, that is, there are even more destroyed), and the many many people clamoring for his attention when he was being a world celebrity, I can't see another reason but Émilie as to why he'd stay in touch with Saint-Lambert, which took a conscious effort of doing under these circumstances. Conversely, Saint-Lambert lived in France, where Voltaire was a celebrity, sure, but also persona non grata in terms of the church and the crown, where a sizable number of people hadn't forgiven him for the Fritz years in Potsdam, and it could have been bad for his career to keep in touch. Again, I can't see this being about someone other than Émilie: they knew the other had loved her, and she had loved them, and that was an experience they shared and no one else did. But to bring this up would not fit with the image of Voltaire the heartless egomaniac who hadn't really cared about Émilie at all anymore when she died, if earlier, so Zinsser doesn't mention it.

All this said: the book isn't about Voltaire, nor should it be. It's about Émilie, and very much succeeds in being so.

Robyn Arianrhod: Seduced by logic. Émilie du Chatelet, Mary Sommerville and the Newtonian Revolution.

I've only read the Émilie part of this so far but really like it. Heavy on the scientific side but lucidly written - the author even had the chance to read Émilie's original manuscript of her Principia translation, and describes it - and the description of Émilie's life is neither as romantisizing as Bodanis nor as defensive and feeling in need to rescue Émilie from Voltaire as Zinsser.



It also settled contributes yet another opinion on something which I've seen a different interpretation on in each book I've read so far, to wit, Algarotti's "Newton for Ladies" and the connection, of lack of same, to actual ladies, especially Émilie.

Algarotti dissertation writer: Algarotti took the basic premise of the book - narrator explains science via erotically charged banter to Marquise - from Fontenelle's earlier book from 1698. Thus, his Marquise isn't the portrait of any particular woman. She's a literary trope.

Bodanis and Zinsser: The Marquise was totally a caricature of Émilie, everyone would have seen her as such, and thus Émilie was justly pissed off. (So was Voltaire.)

Isabel Grundy (in her Lady Mary biography): Actually, the Marquise may have been partly inspired by Émilie, but also partly by Lady Mary, and I can prove it. In chapter such and such, Algarotti's narrator says that one proof of how science can benefit women is the inocculation against smallpox. Everyone at the time would have understood this as a Lady Mary allusion and homage. It was what she was most famous for.

Robyn Arrianrhod: I'm mostly with Dissertation writer. Algarotti took the premise and the idea of the Marquise from Fontenelle, not from any living woman. That's also why the book is dedicated to Fontenelle, not to Émilie. Which is one of the things she was irritated about. The other was that she thought several of his similes to explain equations were very shallow and patronizing to women. *gives examples* But she didn't think the Marquise was meant as a portrait or caricature herself, and by quoting longer from her letters than Zinsser has done, I'm proving it.

Jean Orieux: I published my Voltaire book decades ago and I'm with her. "Émilie thought Algarotti was just a shallow boy, and she didn't take him seriously."

Robin Arianrhod: I didn't say that, actually. Have same more letter quotes in which Émilie says re Algarotti, "ah well, he meant well" and that she still likes him. Anyway, IF Algarotti was thinking of any female intellectual in particular to pay homage to in this book, it was....

*drumroll*

Laura Bassi.

Most people in other biographies: Who?

Arianrhod: In setting the scene for the first 'dialogue', he used the devise of arousing his Marquise's scientific curiosity by having his narrator read her a poem about light and colours - a pem the narrator has written ' for the glory of our Bolognese savante'. Algarotti had written the poem some years ealrier, to celebrate the graduation of the young Italian Newtonian, Laura Bassi, who had received a degree in philosophy at Bologna in 1732, when she was twenty-one years old. She was only the second woman to gain a modern university degree, after Elena Piscopia (...) Several years younger than Émilie, Bssi was a prodigy who had been given an excellent education by her father. In the 1730s, when Algarotti was writing his book, Bassi was lecturing at the University of Bologna in philosophy, including 'natural philosophy', or physics. (...) she was called the Minerva of Bologna, an she gave public rather than academic lectures. Algarotti no doubt discussed her at Cirey, presumably prompting Voltaire to refer to Émilie as "the Minerva of France'.

Which brings me to another of Arianrhod's strengths: feminist context in that she sees other interesting women not just male biographers have overlooked. Also, this:

Francoise de Gaffney (Madame Gaffney): shows up in Zinsser (and Bodanis) as one of Émilie's and Voltaire's houseguests at Cirey who after being at first impressed by Émilie later is the author of some highly critical descriptions of her.

Zinsser, Bodanis, and also Gunderson in her play: Gaffney = conventional, envious society matron.

Arianhrod: Francoise de Graffigny herself was an unusual woman, and she would later use what she had learned in Cirey in her own writing career: at th time of her visit in late 1738, she was just beginning to reinvent herself as a writer, having recently left her violent, abusive husband and having lost her five children, who all died as infants. Voltaire's play "Alzire" and Émilie's version of "The Fable" would inspire Graffigny's later novel, "Lettres d'une Peruvienne" (Peruvian Letters). "Alzire" had used Peru as an exotic location to epxlore the meaning of 'natural virtue' in the context of religious tolerance. It was set during the sixteenth century Spanish conquest of Peru, and it aimed to show that ethics, or 'virtue', was based on natural human decency rather than on slavish adherence to religious ritual, pagan or Christian; in other words, it aimed to show that it was possible to be a good person without the aid of religious dogma. Émilie's "Fable" had analysed 'virtue' in a similar but broader context, with an emphasis on gender conditions and sexual stereotypes. Now Graffigny wanted to expore this idea in relation to the sexual double standard, in which 'virtue' meant one thing for women - being faithful, or at least discreet, wives - and quite another for men (...). Émilie provided the model for Graffigny's free-spirited Pervusian heroine, Zilia, who wants a life of independence - a life she realises is not considered proper for women in France. "Peruvian Letters", published in 1747, became one of the most popular novels of the century.

See what I mean?



Having googled some more, I see that Madame Graffigny is very much worth exploring. (And another illustration why you don't want to be a woman in the 18th century.) She got married to her abusive husband at age 17; they were both from Lorraine, which is a crossover plot point later. Several dead children and much marital brutality later, due to all his gambling debts she got him to sign a document obliging him to leave Lorraine and give her authority to handle the family's finances. A few years later, she achieved a legal separation. But all the debts he'd made still were also hers, and so she was really glad to find a place at the court of...

*drumroll*

Elisabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, Duchess Dowager of Lorraine, as in, daughter of Philippe and Liselotte, mother of Franz Stephan. (BTW, Franz Stephan showing up as "Francois-Etienne" in the English wiki entry threw me for a moment before I realised.) This was a happy time for her, and she also met a dashing officer named Leopold Desmarets, thirteen years her junior, whom she fell in (requited) love with. When FS gave up his dukedom so he could marry MT in 1737, this meant Madame Graffigny lost her patroness (since FS' mother, too, left Lorraine and didn't bring all her ladies-in-waiting with her) and had nowhere to go until finding a new job with the Duchesse de Richelieu in 1738 (wife of the BFF of Voltaire and Émilie). Which is how she ended up in Cirey in 1738, and the thirty-odd letters she wrote during her time there is why she ended up in the Voltaire and Émilie biographies.

According to a doctoral thesis about her which is online, what happened was:

Graffigny was clearly excited and full of anticipation, in fact, she read Locke to prepare for her visit to Cirey. Moreover, she used the last of her remaining resources to buy a new dress for the occasion.19 Mme de Graffigny fully enjoyed the first part of her visit, describing it in the most idyllic terms. She described the décor and the events in the greatest detail, right down to the statue that was placed in a corner to hide the furnace. Art and literature were the topics of choice, except for one evening, when Graffigny brought everyone to tears by recounting her life story. On most occasions, everyone spent part of the day working in his or her room. Graffigny ploughed through some books she had been given rather than writing to Devaux so she could talk about them at dinner. Mme du Châtelet sang an opera one evening, and plays were staged periodically using the guests and neighbors as actors. Of course, Voltaire read everyone his unpublished works, including the controversial La Pucelle. Nevertheless, there was a latent current of tension in the household as Voltaire was furious with the Abbé Desfontaines for the latter’s published attack entitled La Voltairomanie ou Lettre d’un Jeune Avocat. Both Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet had copies, the existence of which they each tried to conceal from the other. In her efforts to protect Voltaire, Mme du Châtelet routinely sorted through the postbag.

One night, the pleasantness came to a sudden and grinding halt when Voltaire accused our epistolière of sending a copy of La Pucelle to Devaux and of having it printed. Mme du Châtelet, while censoring the mail thought she had found the proof in one of Devaux’s letters: “La Pucelle est charmante.” Without explanation Devaux was asked to return Graffigny’s letters; they eventually proved her innocence. She had merely given an account of the work to Devaux, but had not in fact sent a copy of the manuscript. Although Graffigny’s innocence was established, her pride had been hurt. Mme du Châtelet had said in the heat of the moment that she had only taken Graffigny in out of charity and in fact never liked her. Graffigny’s relationship with Mme du Châtelet remained troubled and, by extension, so did her relationship with Voltaire. The atmosphere at Cirey improved when Desmarest arrived to collect Mme de Graffigny. Finally, she dared write to Devaux telling him the story of the accusation to which she had been subjected. Nevertheless, she did not post the letter until she had definitively left Cirey.

(Graffigny secures a position as companion to the Duchesse de Richelieu, i.e. the wife of Voltaire's school friend and Émilie's ex lover, whom they both were still friends with.)

Mme de Graffigny’s path once again crossed that of Mme du Châtelet. And once again, the experience was not a pleasant one. Both women were still smoldering over the incident at Cirey. After all, things had been said that could not easily be forgiven. From Mme de Graffigny’s letters, it seems that she felt almost persecuted. First, Mme du Châtelet blamed Graffigny for having abandoned the duchess after a fireworks display. Several days later she implied that Graffigny had stolen a manuscript from Cirey and was showing it around Paris. She irritated Graffigny by joking with the duke about his extra marital affairs in front of his loving wife. Ironically, Mme du Châtelet used to have a liaison with the duke herself. The ladies even fought about where they sat at dinner or at the opera. According to English Showalter, these arguments, although seemingly petty, revolved around important questions of rank and privilege. Eventually, Mme de Graffigny even felt that Mme du Châtelet was at least partially responsible for the declaration Desmarest had made at Cirey that he no longer loved her. In the end, it is safe to say that Graffigny came to hate Mme du Châtelet. The last straw for Mme de Graffigny, following yet another run-in with Mme du Châtelet at the rehearsal of one of Voltaire’s plays, was the interdiction to accompany Mme de Richelieu to Languedoc. Mme du Châtelet went part way with the duchess before taking the road to Cirey while Mme de Graffigny stayed in Paris to baby sit the young duke de Fronsac, the son of the duke and the duchess. Mme de Graffigny kept in touch with Mme de Richelieu through her correspondence. While in Languedoc, the duchess gave birth to a little girl. The birth turned out to be difficult. The duchess lost a tremendous amount of blood and was greatly weakened. In the end, she returned to Paris to die. Graffigny remained close to her during the last days of her life. In her will, the duchess left Graffigny a small pension to be administered by the Guise family. It was paid sporadically, and eventually not at all. The death of the duchess left Graffigny in a precarious situation. Where would she go now? She was not as friendly with the duke de Richelieu as she had been with his wife. Nevertheless, for a brief period she remained in his service while she planned her next move. Not wishing to burn her bridges before having secured a position elsewhere, she kept her intentions and activities as discrete as possible.

Graffigny secretly hoped to secure a place with Frederic the Great in Prussia. After his father’s death, the Prussian monarch was reorganizing his court to include philosophers and academics. Maupertius, whom Graffigny had met at Cirey and affectionately called la Puce in her letters to Devaux, was one of the scholars successfully recruited by Frederic. In 1740, Maupertius was in Paris recruiting intellectuals to accompany him to Berlin. Graffigny also hoped to secure an invitation for Nicolas Liébault (le Chien), a struggling history professor at Lunéville. Liébault had been among Graffigny’s inner circle of friends while she lived in Lunéville. The two continued to correspond, either directly or through the intermediary of Panpan. In order to include Liébault in the Prussian expedition, a plan was devised according to which he would pose as Graffigny’s brother. The plan did not progress as smoothly as one would have hoped. The two argued about how to proceed. Above all, Graffigny did not want the duke of Richelieu to know that she was making arrangements to leave. In direct opposition to Graffigny’s wishes, Liébault made some contacts on his own who could have revealed Graffigny’s plan’s for departure to the duke of Richelieu. Graffigny was furious! No Prussian positions materialized.

Voltaire years later, when Wilhelmine was looking for an intellectual companion, reccomended Graffigny for the post, which may or may not have been at least partially prompted by wanting to make up to her how badly things had gone. But by then Graffigny had established herself in Paris and presumably did not want risk getting stranded in the middle of provincial Franconia if things didn't work out with Wilhelmine, so she refused the offer.

Incidentally, the dissertation also informs me that the novel that made Graffigny's name as a writer, Peruvian Letters, sensationally did not end in marriage as the happily ever after. Using the device of a Peruvian woman coming to France and writing letters home to critique French society and customes, Graffigny even lets her heroine reject Christianity at the end as well as marriage to the handsome Frenchman who is in love with her. This caused as many as five unauthorized sequels being written in which the heroine gets duly married and baptized. (Just think of all the unauthorized Don Quixotte sequels published between part I and part II, or all the readers complaining to Louisa Alcott that Jo doesn't marry Laurie.) Graffigny remained firm and in each subsequent edition of her novel kept her ending intact, and she refused to write a sequel of her own as well.

The Voltaire Foundation has in recent yeas completed the 15 volumes edition of Graffigny's complete correspondance, which opens with a desparate letter her not even 20 years old self wrote to her father:

My dear father,

I am forced, in the dire plight where I find myself, to implore you not to abandon me and to have Mr de Rarecour come and get me as quickly as possible, for I am in great danger and am all shattered with blows. I throw myself at your mercy and ask you that this be done very soon. You have to say that others than I informed you, for everyone knows it. I am with much respect your most humble and obedient servant

F. d’Haponcour de Grafigny




The fact that all of the Émilie biographers/writers save Arianrhod describe Graffigny as a jealous society matron in order to dismiss her criticism of Émilie thus ends up being another demonstration of how not to deal with the fact your fave has their problematic sides as well.



cahn: I am quite impressed by Arianrhod's ability as a science writer. I'm familiar with the physics she covers -- though not nearly as much with the history of the science -- and I thought she did a great job of making it clear and accessible and demonstrating what they were thinking about back then, and the different strains of thought, and what we think today relative to what they thought then. I really felt like I learned a lot about all that, which I enjoyed a lot. (The only exception is when she talked about the double-slit experiment, which I realize is really beyond the scope of this book, but as someone who is familiar with the experiment, her description seemed rather muddled to me.)

I also really liked the way she disentangled the threads of how Émilie was instrumental in interpreting and arguing for Newton, and how although obviously Newton was a genius and did amazing and genius-y things which arguably no one else at the time could have done except for Leibniz (just kidding, lol, calculus aside), all these physics developments really depended on all these other people too (Edmond Halley, basically sweet-talking Newton into writing all his stuff down? Did not realize he was such a hero until this book!) and it made me think about the kinds of things we prioritize in terms of the stories we tell and the people we remember, and how some of that is shifting and becoming more inclusive -- by which I don't mean of women/minorities, though that's also happening and is a really good thing, but concurrent with that, the idea that it's not just Lone Genius Man (or even woman, or nb person) who is worth remembering and talking about. Which is a really good thing!

A couple of various thoughts (trying not to wholly duplicate what selenak has already written about; thank you for covering this and for writing about Laura Bassi and Mme de Graffigny!)

-LOL to reading this after Zinsser; Arianrhod clearly likes Voltaire a lot more than Zinsser (this is not hard) and mostly seems to agree with Orieux that they had a rather tempestuous relationship but that both of them were... kind of like that, and actually soulmates in a "we decided at some point we'd rather have sex with other people but you're still the awesomest" sort of way

She was fiery, while he was prone to awful sulking moods. She could be imperious and controlling... he was egotistical, and he could be passively aggressive, deliberately hurting her... Sometimes he hurled awful words that made her cry for hours, and she occasionally threw at him a spoon or a plate. But always they made up. Usually, after a dreadful scene... soon all would be forgiven and they would be laughing together. It was an intimacy very few people understood.

VOLTAIRE. Voltaire's taste in soulmate relationships, man, he does seem to have a bit of a type ;) (Though maybe not Mme Denis as much? Though they seem to have fought a lot too, though differently, according to Orieux.)

-After our discussion on Orieux and Zinsser (she has read Zinsser's work, and at some point I may go through her notes), I was charmed to see this:

It had all gone so well, Voltaire told a friend, that although the mother was now sleeping, she was not as tired as he was, having recently delivered his Catalina.

Go Arianrhod :P (Émilie :(((( )

Of course, she may err on the side of liking Voltaire:

Walking around Paris today, it is hard not to like and admire Voltaire, whose kindly face smiles down from the many statues erected to this great poet, dramatist, essayist, and revolutionary hero.

I... have never thought of his face as kindly (though I know he could be kind). More "like he's laughing at you. Possibly in a mostly-kind way."

Loved the following quote, and I feel like this sums up the balanced view that Arianrhod takes towards Émilie:

[Émilie] broke so many stereotypes about women and about mathematicians, stereotypes that lingered until the eve of the twenty-first century. She showed it is possible to be both emotional and rational, both intellectual and sexy. She was truly the 'divine Émilie'.



selenak: This brings me, though, to one thing all the Émilie books agree on without ever poviding citation and quotes to back it up, and which I have to say I must question, to wit: Madame Denis as "eager to please, not talking back, conventionally feminine and either of mediocre intelligence" (the non fiction crowd) or downright stupid (Gunderson). Now, as I said before, I don't doubt that there was something of the cliché of "man in midlife crisis goes for sexy young thing" in the whole Voltaire/Denis relationship starting when it did. But given how Madame Denis appears throughout the rest of Voltaire's life, and given the utter lack of eager to please quotes from her in these books, it seems to me our Émilie biographers approach the question with a pre-formed idea (Émilie was too challenging, ergo he went for a bimbo) and don't bother to back it up. Why do I think that? Not because I see her as a misjudged genius, no. But consider this:



- Denis' father dies in 1737, her mother, Voltaire's sister, died five years easier; from this point onwards, Marie-Louise and her two siblings (Elisabeth and the later Abbé Mignot, to come in handy when a Christian burial ground for Voltaire is wanted) , get into closer contact with Uncle Voltaire; he tries to do the conventional thing and finding good marriages for the girls; Elisabeth marries the guy Voltaire suggests, Marie-Louise refuses and picks her own man, Nicholas Denis which slightly surprises Voltaire, but he goes with it and provides her with the same dowry as her sister got. (Marie-Louise becomes Madame Denis in 1738.) This also when the soon to be married Marie-Louise visits Cirey for the first time but thinks she couldn't stand living in the middle of nowhere. At this point, Voltaire's contact with his nieces and nephew is there but mostly limited to letters and providing financial support since he's the rich uncle, and he doesn't, for example, attend either of the weddings.

- The relationship between Voltaire and Marie-Louise Denis doesn't become intimate (in either sense of the word) until she's widowed and in her early 30s. This still makes her far younger than him, not to mention the incest factor, but, especially given the era they live in, an easily impressionable youngster, she's not, but an adult woman.

- We don't know who initialized the relationship turning sexual (at least not according to the books I've read so far), but she's definitely the one setting the parameters (for example, when Voltaire in a letter expresses the hope of becoming her only lover, she immediately shoots that down; she always had other lovers, and he knew that, not least because some of them ended up having debts he had to help out with. She also refused to come to Prussia with him until the very end of his stay there.

- it's noticeable that Voltaire's memoir-writing valet from the 1730s and early 1740s, Longchamps, complains about Émilie being bossy (not just towars him but Voltaire), while Voltaire's memoir-writing valet from the 1750s, Collini, complains about Madame Denis being bossy (towards not just him, but Voltaire); I'd say either Voltaire just was happy to hand over the thankless task of saying no to the women, or he was into being dominated by them, or both

- as for her intelligence; definitely not a genius like Émilie, but smart and educated enough to know several languages. Also, she wrote as early as 1750 to the Marquis d'Argenson (not be confused with the Marquis d'Argens) when evidently the first grumbling from Prussia had reached her: My uncle is not made to live with kings. His character is too irrepressible, too inconsistent and too unruly; even three years ago, I predicted what is currently happening, but one hadn't thanked me for it then. Spot-on, I'd say.

So, she might have been every bit as greedy for money as Orieux accuses her as having been, but she doesn't come across as stupid, weak-willed or, for that matter, eager to please. Could she have faked such an attitude towards Voltaire in the 1740s when his relationship with her started, only dropping the pretense later? Sure. But in lack of a quote where she does just that, it remains guesswork, with no more canon basis than assuming Saint-Lambert of being her male equivalent towards Émilie.

Back to the actual books. One thing cahn did not mention, which has nothing to do with Émilie, was Zinsser in her summary of Voltaire's pre-Émilie life and loves springs this on us:



Historians have sugggested the young Voltaire was molested at his college by the Jesuit instructors.

They have? Sadly, no source citation for this one from Zinsser. Orieux certainly does not suggest it, though bear in mind he published his biography in 1966. mildred_of_midgard, you've read a more recent Voltaire bio, does this one include this speculation, and if so, does it say what it's based on?

(mildred_of_midgard: Nope, I see nothing. I didn't remember it, and I rescanned the passage just now, and nothing.)

I mean, it's obviously not impossible (insert current day statistics here), but otoh Orieux does provide several citations, with letters, chapter and verse, of Voltaire having good memories of his school days, keeping in touch with several of his teachers, caring about their opinion of his plays and still writing in praise of some of the Jesuits who taught him as late as the 1740s, when he was busy crusading against the Catholic Church as an institution everywhere else. Now, Voltaire was a contradictory creature all his life, and again, of course it's possible that he liked some of his teachers and loathed others, that the ones whom he praised were not the ones who abused him, or even that he had mixed feelings for an abuser if said abuser was also a good teacher otherwise. But: I would like to have more than "historians have suggested" to base this on, especially with someone like Voltaire, otherwise not known to have kept quiet about anything bad that ever happened to him.

Zinsser then continues to make her case for Voltaire the bisexual by continuing, right after this sentence: Voltaire could also have had his initiation in the libertine circles he frequented when his father sent him to study law in Rouen, or when he first arrived in Paris.

Judith Zinsser, being molested by your teacher as a school boy is quite a different thing to being "initiated" as a willing partner by whoever. The former is also not saying anything about your eventual orientation.

During the years of the Regency, Voltaire was invited to La Source, the chateau of the English political exile Lord Bolingbroke, and probably to his gatherings in Paris as well. Bolingbroke was openly homosexual, modeling himself on Alcibiades and Petronius as the wise elder man schooling his young protegés in political philosophy and erotica. Voltaire was sixteen when they first met. Intimate male friendships, perhaps some having a sexual aspect, were characteristic of the Republic of Letters. Voltaire and Maupertuis, for example, were part of a network of young men of intellect, in a sense a coterie within the Republic of Letters, who wrote letters of introduction to each other, entertained one another, and perhaps exchanged sexual favors, just as they exchanged their verses, treatises and books.

(That's a lot of "perhaps" there.)

This network made Voltaire's exile in England particularly rewarding. (...) Voltaire also maintained his ties to Lord Hervey, the courtier and confidant to Queen Caroline of England. In September 1733, Voltaire reccomended the English version of his 'Lettres philosophiques' to him, and asked the 'charming lord', known for his relationships with women and men, to 'remember a Frenchman who is devoted to your lordship forever with the utmost respect, and loves you passionately.'

What amuses me here is the "Gay (English) network" idea, when Halsband in his Hervey biography, quoting that same letter, goes "how utterly French of Voltaire". He also provides a bit more context for the Hervey and Voltaire relationship, including, remember, Hervey asking for Voltaire's opinion on his poetry, but also Hervey being angry when reading Voltaire's tongue-in-cheek dedication of the "English Letters" to an English merchant where he makes that crack about the nobility on both sides of the channel versus the non-noble merchants. Now, Halsband discusses Hervey's same-sex relations with Stephen Fox and with Algarotti and the whatever it was pre breakup with Fritz of Wales in as much detail as available, so I guess if he'd had any indication there was homoerotic interest between Voltaire and Hervey, he'd have mentioned it, but he didn't. So: if I'm to buy a bi Voltaire, I want a bit more than Rokoko-style over the top letter greetings and socializing with gay and bi people. (English or otherwise.) How's this as a concluding irony: Zinsser rightly points out that we don't have definite proof for Émilie/Maupertuis, that the flirtatious tone in her early letters and her having his portrait in her bedroom could be explained otherwise, and the assumption of an affair later from outside sources based on the sexist idea that a woman can't want a teacher for anything but a romance. And yet she comes up with a whole lot of assumptions here that are based on far less.