The Philosopher and the Prodigy: How Voltaire Fell in Love with a Remarkable Female Mathematician

by Michelle Legro

 “I found, in 1733, a young woman who thought as I did, and who decided to spend several years in the country, cultivating her mind.”

 So begins the description by Voltaire in his memoirs of a relationship that would define the most productive years of his life. The most famous man in Europe had met his match: the twenty-seven-year-old mathematical prodigy Émilie, Marquise du Châtelet.

The pairing was dynamic and productive — together, they would achieve some of the most important Enlightenment writing on science, physics, and philosophy. But as Nancy Mitford explains in her fantastic 1957 biography of the intellectual power couple, Voltaire in Love , they were devoted not just as intellectuals, but as lovers as well as friends. It was an extraordinary bond that lasted for nearly fifteen years...

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