Subasta Bidspirit | MAUPERTUIS PIERRE LOUIS: (1698-1759) On

MAUPERTUIS PIERRE LOUIS: (1698-1759) On Voltaire – ‘he pushed his horrors against me to the point of giving this country a spectacle’ - MAUPERTUIS PIERRE LOUIS: (1698-1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters, the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science at the invitation of Frederick the Great. An excellent L.S., Maupertuis , two pages, 8vo, Berlin, 30 th December 1752, to Francois-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif, in French. Maupertuis states that he had no doubt of the part his correspondent would take in the letter which he sent him a few days ago, and continues ‘Vous n'en prendrez pas moins a tout ce qui s'est passe depuis cette lettre ayant mis Voltaire au desespoir, il a pousse ses horreurs contremoi au point de donner a ce pays-ci un spectacle qui…… n'y avait point ete vu depuis le reigne de Frederic I. Dimanche passe son libelle fut brule par la main du bourreau sous la potence et dans toutes les places publiques. Cette execution beaucoup plus infamante encore ici qu'elle n'est en France, a ete faitte par ordre expres du Roy, au grand applaudissement de tous les honnetes gens, et meme de la populace, on vit arriver de toutes parts des gens en fiacre pour se chauffer a ce feu’ (Translation: ‘You will take nothing less from everything that has happened since this letter, having driven Voltaire to despair, he pushed his horrors against me to the point of giving this country a spectacle which……had not been seen there since the reign of Frederick I. Last Sunday his libel was burned by the hand of the executioner under the gallows and in all the public places. This execution, much more infamous here than it is in France, was carried out by express order of the King, to the great applause of all honest people, and even of the populace, people were seen arriving from all parts in cabs to warm themselves by this fire’ ). Maupertuis assures de Moncrif ‘dans la plus exacte verite que je n'ai jamais rendu que des services a Voltaire, que je n'ai jamais ecrit un mot contre lui’ (Translation: ‘with the most exact truth that I have never rendered anything but services to Voltaire, that I have never written a word against him’ ) and also writes that ‘Le Roy m'ecrivit le soir une lettre charmante et m'envoyait pour poudre rafrai chissante les cendres de la diatribe’ (Translation: ‘The King wrote me a charming letter that evening and sent me the ashes of the diatribe as refreshing powder’ ). A letter of fascinating content and with good associations. The blank integral leaf neatly inlaid and with a contemporary ink annotation to the upper left corner. Some light foxing and staining, predominantly to the edges of the letter. G Francois-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif (1687-1770) French writer and poet, historiographer royal to King Louis XV of France. Voltaire (1694-1778) Francois-Marie Arouet. French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher. In mid-1750 Voltaire had moved to Prussia at the invitation of Frederick the Great who appointed the writer a chamberlain of the royal household and also granted him the Order of Merit with a salary of 20,000 French livres a year. In 1751 Voltaire successfully completed his science fiction work Micromegas , however relationships with Frederick began to sour after Voltaire was accused of theft and forgery by Abraham Hirschel, a Jewish financier. Other difficulties arose for Voltaire including an argument with Maupertuis provoked by the former’s Diatribe du docteur Akakia which satirised some of Maupertuis’s theories and his persecutions of Johann Samuel Konig, a mutual acquaintance. This greatly angered Frederick the Great who ordered all copies of the work to be burned. Voltaire offered to resign his post and return his insignia of the Order of Merit, however Frederick at first refused until eventually allowing Voltaire to leave in March 1752. Provenance: From the celebrated collection of Robert de Flers (1872-1927) French playwright, opera librettist and journalist. The manuscripts amassed by de Flers were dispersed in 2014 at an auction in Paris conducted by Beaussant Lefevre.