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PARIS, May 31, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A collector paid $750,000 at an auction in Paris for 26 letters sent by French philosopher Voltaire to Russia's Empress Catherine the Great.
The letters written between 1768 and 1777 far exceeded Sotheby's estimated selling price of $385,000 and set a world record for letters from the period, the BBC reported Wednesday.
Catherine II ruled Russia from 1762 to 1796 and considered herself a "philosopher on the throne," keeping in contact with several great philosophers, the report said.
Voltaire's letters discussed the partition of Poland and Catherine's first war with the Ottoman Empire. In one of the letters, Voltaire calls ruler of the Ottoman Empire "fat and ignorant".
A first edition of James Joyce's "Ulysses" sold during the same auction for $148,000.
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
