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The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Emilie du Chatelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings
Crown
October 2006
On Sale: October 10, 2006
384 pages
ISBN: 0307237206
EAN: 9780307237200
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction History
It was 1733 when the poet and philosopher Voltaire met
Emilie du Châtelet, a beguiling—and married—aristocrat who
would one day popularize Newton’s arcane ideas and pave the
way for Einstein’s theories. In an era when women were
rarely permitted any serious schooling, this
twenty-seven-year-old’s nimble conversation and unusual
brilliance led Voltaire, then in his late thirties, to
wonder, “Why did you only reach me so late?†They fell
immediately and passionately in love. Through the prism of their tumultuous fifteen-year
relationship we see the crumbling of an ancient social order
and the birth of the Enlightenment. Together the two lovers
rebuilt a dilapidated and isolated rural chateau at Cirey
where they conducted scientific experiments, entertained
many of the leading thinkers of the burgeoning scientific
revolution, and developed radical ideas about the monarchy,
the nature of free will, the subordination of women, and the
separation of church and state. But their time together was filled with far more than
reading and intellectual conversation. There were frantic
gallopings across France, sword fights in front of besieged
German fortresses, and a deadly burning of Voltaire’s books
by the public executioner at the base of the grand stairwell
of the Palais de Justice in Paris. The pair survived court
intrigues at Versailles, narrow escapes from agents of the
king, a covert mission to the idyllic lakeside retreat of
Frederick the Great of Prussia, forays to the royal gambling
tables (where Emilie put her mathematical acumen to
lucrative use), and intense affairs that bent but did not
break their bond. Along with its riveting portrait of Voltaire as a vulnerable
romantic, Passionate Minds at last does justice to the
supremely unconventional life and remarkable achievements of
Emilie du Châtelet—including her work on the science of fire
and the nature of light. Long overlooked, her story tells us
much about women’s lives at the time of the Enlightenment.
Equally important, it demonstrates how this graceful,
quick-witted, and attractive woman worked out the concepts
that would lead directly to the “squared†part of Einstein’s
revolutionary equation: E=mc2. Based on a rich array of personal letters, as well as
writings from houseguests, neighbors, scientists, and even
police reports, Passionate Minds is both panoramic and
intimate in feeling. It is an unforgettable love story and a
vivid rendering of the birth of modern ideas.
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