Voltaire-Rohan dispute

April 16th, 1726 the following police report is addressed to the minister:

“It has just been informed by sure way that the sior Voltaire meditates to insult without delay and with glare Mr. the knight of Rohan he at one is currently named Leymaud, Master in fact, street Saint Martin's day, where he lives in very bad company”

Voltaire wants to fight with Guy-Auguste of Rohan-Chub what will be worth to him embastillement its, but spared all the same by the following letter written for the governor of the Bastille:

“The sior Voltaire is of a genius to need cares. Its Royal Highness found good that I wrote that the intention of the King is that you get all softnesses and the freedom of the Bastille to him which will not be contrary with the safety of its detention. ”

Voltaire obtains his departure for England to leave the Bastille:

“I go up very humbly that I was assassinated by the honest knight of assisted Rohan of six cut-throats behind which it was boldly posted. I always sought since this time to repair, not my honor, but it his, which is too difficult… I ask for with even more insistence the permission of go without delay to England; if one doubts my departure, one can send to me with free to Calais. ”

According to Gilles Perrault ( the Secrecy of the King , work asserting good number of source), Voltaire remains less than fifteen days to the Bastille, and this unequal fight between Voltaire and Rohan was born one evening with the Comedy, in the cabin of Adrienne Lecouvreur. The knight, jealous of the success of Voltaire near the actress, would have said to him in front of this one, to put forward his nobility vis-a-vis the commoner: “Arouet? Voltaire? Lastly, do you have a name? ” The counterpart fuses: “Voltaire! I begin my name and you finish yours. ” (Of others still pay: “My name, I begin it, and you finish yours!” )

However, one finds a version different (on the http://adlitteram.free.fr) site. Voltaire would have remained in fact six months with the Bastille and the dispute would have taken place following an animated discussion, at the time of a dinner at the duke of Sully: “Which is, known as the knight, this young man who speaks to me so high? - It is, answered Voltaire, a man who does not trail a great name, but which can honor that it carries”.

In the two versions, Voltaire is bastonné at the time of one (other) meal at Sully, a servant reduces it in the street where two cars wait there. At Gilles Perrault, one spouts out a flight of slap-hard armed with sticks, and tapi in the other, Rohan exclaims: “Do not strike the head, it can still leave something it good. ” In the other version, one requests it to come to sit down one moment in a car, it east seizes by the front of its clothes, and another man strikes it by behind of five or six blows of rod. The knight of Rohan, posted with some steps from there in his car, exclaims: “It is enough”.

Valerie van Crugten-Andre, historian (with the Universit3e libre de Bruxelles), gives other details on this business (see http://www.memo.fr). The dispute starts with the opera (at the end of January 1726): “Us of Voltaire, Us Arouet, how are you called? - And you, are you called Rohan or Chub? ”. They is two days after, with the French Comedy in the presence of Adrienne Lecouvreur, that Voltaire answers a new load of the Knight whom it began his name and whom Chabot finished to it his. Rohan raises its cane, but is charmed…

Rene Pomeau (in Voltaire in its time ) specifies, Voltaire is embastillé on April 17th, 1726 and is in departure for Calais on May 5th of the same year.

Random links: