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VOLTAIRE

Lettre autographe de Voltaire, enrichie de son paraphe, adressée à son éditeur genevois Gabriel Cramer : "faute horrible, inadvertence affreuse dont les faiseurs de feuilles feraient retentir l'Europe"

s.d. (circa 1757-1759), 11,5x19cm, une page.

manuscript bearing witness to Voltaire's obsessive care in publishing his works and his utter contempt for the press.

Autograph letter, with his autograph initials to his genevan publisher:
“Faute horrible, inadvertence affreuse dont les faiseurs de feuilles feraient retentir l'Europe”

Exceptional manuscript bearing witness to Voltaire's obsessive care in publishing his works and his utter contempt for the press.
A very rare letter entirely in Voltaire's own hand, initialed with a angered curvilinear penstroke, 13 lines written in black, to his Geneva publisher Gabriel Cramer who promoted often clandestinely the diffusion of the philosopher's writings and ideas.
Voltaire sends this message to Cramer, horrified by an error in the proofs of his History of the Russian Empire (1759-1763); he foresees the scathing criticism of journalists, dubbed “folliculars” in his celebrated Candide, published the same year as the first volume of his Russian history. At the heart of the Enlightenment movement, Voltaire wanted to establish a historical science based on direct and reliable sources, setting himself apart from his predecessors. He seeks the help of his publisher to verify the accuracy of the facts contained in his monumental historical undertaking, written under the watchful eye of Tsarina Elizabeth, and later her famous patron Catherine the Great when its second volume appears in 1763.

Cramer vs. Voltaire
Cramer, Voltaire's publisher in Geneva, issued almost all his works between 1756 and 1775, braving the wrath of the Church and the police. Cramer was responsible for the first edition of his best-known work and magnum opus, Candide; he also published his historical works, of which the History of the Russian Empire is one of the most important. He also published his scandalous dictionaries and his theater plays, in which he played himself with great talent at the writer's home in Ferney.
During their twenty-two years of collaboration, Voltaire never hesitated to address emphatic complaints to the Cramer brothers: “Voltaire constantly harasses his publishers. With great skill, he demanded proofs, proposed corrections, protested against typographical errors, and begged the Cramers to send him a particular sheet or replace a particular page with a carton” (Robert Gagnebin). This “Voltairian art” of correction is perfectly illustrated here by this dramatical message written around 1757-1759, during the writing of his History of the Russian Empire. An error had crept into the chapter recounting Sophie's regency (1682-1689) about the location of the Trinity monastery where members of the ruling family took refuge during a revolt: “here's another mistake page 105 line twenty, twelve miles from Petersburg is actually twelve miles from Moscow”. The stakes were high as his Histoire had been commissioned by Count Shuvalov, favorite of Tsarina Elisabeth, as a celebration of enlightened absolutism. Voltaire was well aware of the importance of an impeccable study, subject to the approval of the Russian Court – as demanding as he was of himself, he ignored the corrections suggested by his Moscow censors.

Enlightment and leaf-makers
His Histoire was intended as a weapon in the service of the Enlightenment ideal, setting itself apart from biographies, tragedies and anecdotal accounts that preceded it; its preface points out the poor quality of previous writings on Russia and cites La Lande's Histoire de Charles VI (La Haye, 1743), also mentioned in this letter. Preferring to maintain his criticism of La Lande in his preface, Voltaire nevertheless refuses to compromise with his own corrections: “I'd rather correct this page than the preface. One may think Lalande a bad writer, but one mustn't make mistakes oneself”. This message to Cramer is therefore an integral part of the writer's intense proofreading work to protect himself from his many critics. As he would write a few years later to Count d'Argental “printed characters speak to the eyes much more than a manuscript. You see the danger more clearly; you run to it, you make new efforts, you correct, that's my method”.
In addition to the Tsarist censors, Voltaire justifiably felt under fire from journalists, those “leaf-makers [who] would spread [the mistake he made] across Europe”. In his most famous writings and correspondence, Voltaire coined a number of expressions to describe them: “serpents of literature who feed on mire and venom” (Candide), “gnats who lay their eggs in the backsides of the finest horses” (letter to Condorcet). His letter to the reader in his Histoire even contains an expression similar to this letter: “let the little pamphlet-makers bark”. They indeed barked as soon as the first volume came out, and published a critic entitled Lettre du tsar Pierre à M. de Voltaire sur son Histoire de Russie.
This outstanding letter initialed by the French Enlightenment writer marks a small yet important milestone in Voltaire's great publishing adventure – a true credit to his incomparable style and his concern for accuracy in his writings.
 

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