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Voltaire

3 stories mention Voltaire on DeadlyCurious.

The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Lunéville, Lorraine

The French Marquise Who Produced the Definitive French Translation of Newton's Principia, Wrote It While Pregnant at 42, and Died Six Days After Childbirth

Émilie du Châtelet's French translation and mathematical commentary on Newton's *Principia* was completed in summer 1749 while she was carrying a fourth child at age 42. She finished the manuscript at Lunéville on 1 September 1749, gave birth on 4 September, and died of puerperal fever on 10 September. The translation, published posthumously in 1759, remained the standard French Newton until the 20th century.

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The Cabinet June 26, 2026 · Lisbon

The Earthquake That Hit Catholic Europe on All Saints Day in 1755 and Substantially Broke Eighteenth-Century Theology

A magnitude 8.5–9.0 earthquake struck Lisbon at approximately 9.40 AM on 1 November 1755 — All Saints Day, when the city's churches were full. The earthquake, the fires that followed, and the tsunami forty minutes later killed approximately 30,000 to 50,000 people. The European Enlightenment never substantially recovered the cosmic optimism of the early 18th century.

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The Footnote June 26, 2026 · Les Délices, Geneva

The 234-Line French Poem Voltaire Wrote in Three Weeks After Lisbon and the Three-Year Argument It Started With Rousseau

Voltaire wrote the *Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne* in mid-November 1755 — three weeks after the earthquake — as a direct philosophical attack on the Leibnizian doctrine of optimism. Rousseau answered with a long defence in August 1756. The argument substantially defined the French Enlightenment's theological position for the next generation.

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